How can content design help storytelling in the cultural sector?
Guest post: Rachel Edwards, Content Design London
Today we’ve got a post from the organisation Content Design London. One of my very first jobs, back in 2013, was working with the maverick team at Government Digital Service when they were getting started with Content Design and how it could professionalize the process of making web pages meet user needs.
Since then, I’ve thought deeply about the extent to which content design is useful in the sector. Sure, it can help us build better informational pages, but what about for blogs, editorial, social media - does it have a role there?
Here’s Rachel Edwards, who – along with Sarah Winters – is the co-author of the second edition of Content Design. She’s talking us through how content design can be useful to cultural sector storytelling.
Art and culture is about storytelling and creative experiences. We use language to paint pictures, metaphorically if not literally. How can you describe a piece of art, promote an exhibition, or explain an artist’s vision without being creative?
In content design, however, the focus is on clear language (sometimes called plain English). Instead of being a tool we use to convey meaning, figurative language can become problematic. Sentences are shorter, and we use words that are easy to understand.
The 2 spheres might seem at odds with each other. On the one hand we have storytelling, imagery, and figurative language. On the other we have clarity, simplicity, and direct language. But there is space for both of these in the cultural sector: and indeed, on the same website.
Imagine you work in a museum. You have a special exhibition that you want to promote, and a variety of channels you can use. How do you start?
User needs
If you were to take a content design approach to the task, you would begin by identifying “user needs”. First, you do some research to find out what the people coming to your website or planning to visit your museum need, or want to get, from your information. You can do this from your desk, or maybe by talking to people interested in visiting the exhibition.
From that work, you get an idea of what audiences need and want from your information. And most likely, you will find you have more than one audience to write for. For example, you might have:
an art student wondering if they can bring an easel and sketch in the gallery space,
a wheelchair user who wants to know about accessibility,
families interested in activities for children,
tourists looking for information in other languages.
User stories
All these people and their needs get turned into “user stories''. These are short descriptions of what someone is trying to achieve with your information, told in a specific way, for example:
As a person interested in contemporary art
I want to know more about this exhibition
So I can decide if I want to attend.
You would create a user story for the different needs you identified in your research. At the end you might have a whole bank of user stories that capture a whole range of different needs.
Journey mapping
But what do you do with all these user stories? That’s where journey mapping comes in. Journey mapping means thinking about the whole journey your user is on at the point they get to your content.
Your content isn’t a stand alone point in someone’s journey to getting what they want. It’s very unlikely that, without a prompt, someone will sit at their computer, type in your website URL, and decide to buy tickets to the exhibition. More likely, they will see an advert on the side of a bus. Maybe they’ll read a review in a local paper. Possibly their WhatsApp group mentions it, or maybe they subscribe to a local arts newsletter.
Whatever the reason, something has prompted them to look for more information. And then by possibly a direct route, or a convoluted one, they end up on your website. Once there, they might look around a bit, they might head straight to buy tickets, or they might leave your site and come back later.
These are all journeys, peppered with different content points. Some of them you might be able to control: for example, the information on your website, and maybe the posters on the bus. Other information you cannot. But they are all part of the user’s journey.
Journey mapping recognises that people need different things at different stages and content isn’t standalone. And the content you create for those different points in a journey might have different formats, language, and tone.
When you start to create content, you need to know where it sits in the journey. You can draw this out (we recommend lots of post it notes and a big wall). Look at where your piece of content sits in context.
And now, you can start creating content: making sure that each piece answers a user need. You might decide the wheelchair user’s needs would be best met by a video showing the inside of the museum. For the families, some downloadable resources might help. The tourists looking for information might get a page of content in different languages.
By understanding your audience, their needs, and where your content sits on their journey, you will know what sort of content they need. And then you can confidently decide if what you need is a piece of storytelling content, or direct information. Not all content has to be storytelling. There will be people who are coming for more practical information, or who have other needs. Doing this work helps you pick out who those people are and what they need.
You will know the page that has information about opening times and ticket prices should be clear and direct. However, a section for people who want to learn more about the artist's practice might be better as a video or a series of images.
However, content design has a place within storytelling. There are many elements of content design best practice you can - and should - incorporate, beyond plain English. For example:
creating video content with subtitles or a transcript for improved accessibility,
adding alt text to any images,
ensuring links are descriptive,
making the best use of spacing, white space, and clear text,
structuring your content so that it’s easy to find.
And remember, language can be emotive, descriptive, and tell a story while also being clear.
Content design is more than just clear language. At its heart, it’s about understanding what someone needs at different points. It’s about giving people the information they need, when they need it, in a way they expect.
And it’s the ‘when they need it’ bit that leads us to journey mapping.
When we create content, we often think of it as a piece of content. But what we need to do is think of it as a piece in a chain, or a journey.
For more about journey mapping and how you can use content design in your work, you can read Content Design, second edition, by Sarah Winters and Rachel Edwards.
Rachel Edwards is a senior content designer at Content Design London. She is interested in using content design to help people understand policy, services, and their rights. Rachel is co-author of the best-selling book, Content Design, second edition.
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