Book review: Content Design by Sarah Richards
If you write or edit web content, you probably know about how to make writing work for the web: using scannable headings, writing meaningful link text, using dot points, being accessible and so on.
But working with web content demands a broader approach when the words are only part of the whole process. Sarah Richards (now Sarah Winters) defined the discipline of content design while she worked on the redesign of UK government websites. She now runs Content Design London, an outfit that offers consultancy, training and community for content designers. Her book is a succinct and practical summary of the area.
‘Content design’ Sarah says, ‘is a way of thinking’. It’s a process that extends far ahead of the words on the screen, and uses ‘data and evidence to give the audience what they need, at the time they need it and in a way they expect’. The book talks about the basics of web writing, outlines the psychology of reading, and discusses user research, user stories, working with the organisation, pair-writing and crits.
Sarah brings a designer’s mindset to the discipline, and emphasises the importance of research and evidence in making decisions about content. She offers some good strategies for the discovery phase, and some ways to bring the organisation along. One of the main themes is that the content designer works in context and in a relationship with an organisation and with users. The section on pair writing was particularly useful for me when I read it, offering some effective ways to work with subject-matter experts to show them how their content could be stronger.
The importance of research and evidence is a throughline of the book that’s also obvious in a related project from Sarah’s organisation, Content Design London: the Readability Guidelines. It’s a universal style based on evidence for its decisions and forms a nice companion to Content Design.
You’re an editor. You understand how words work. You think about the structure and context around those words. If you want to take these skills towards working with web content in a systematic way, then this book is a great place to start.
Buy a copy of Content Design from the Content Design London website.
Mike Lim
Editors SA
