How to bring content design back into your UX design process

Content design isn't necessarily part of an aspiring web developer's immediate learning plan, but getting a sense for other disciplines in your industry will make you a more well-rounded developer. And since you should be learning UX design anyway, it's good to know this stuff. For the purposes of this post, content refers primarily to copy, not other content elements like images or icons.

UX design has been overly deconstructed to its basic parts; wireframes, mind maps, and user stories. The role of content in UX design has been lost, left to the last item on the todo list before a website ships. Content managers have been relegated to mere copywriters, pumping out words like widgets in a factory. It's no wonder business writing sucks.



Posts about the role of words in design have garnered a little attention, but then the designers go back to their Photoshop tools and forget about the value of words all over again. Entire fonts have been created so that designers don't have to think about words until it's absolutely necessary.

Content design, caring enough about content to place it properly and make sure it's legible, is a primary subset of UX design because a user's primary experience when using a web or software product is with its content, not its clickable or scrollable interactions. In fact, allow your content to inform your UX design. As a subset of UX design, you shouldn't consider the UX design process complete until your content has been written, reviewed, and placed.

Put succinctly, words come before pixels.

The best way to do this is to make content design part of your UX design process. If you have a UX designer, make content design part of their job description. If you have a copywriter, make sure they are working with the UX designer during the UX design process. If you have separate UX and content teams, it's time to integrate those folks like the Brady Bunch.

If the thought of bringing content into your UX design process sounds foreign to you, try this exercise when you start your next project:

1. Write out your website copy first, before your UX designer gets her hands on the project. This should be done for the entire site, not just the home page. This act alone will help to clarify your site's purpose, message, flow, information architecture, etc.


2. Edit, cut, trim, and prune your copy until you are communicating exactly what you want your visitors to understand. Nothing more, nothing less.


3. Pass the copy to your UX designer. Let her understand the constraints of the amount of copy, the voice, the communication flow, and the message your visitors should be picking up. If she's good, she'll thank you for the clarity and the constraint.

Do this and watch the layout and user interaction flow around your message instead of having to bend your message to the layout.