In the past few years, design and content have become more integrated than ever before. It’s no longer enough to just create something beautiful and assign writers to draft content that fits. In fact, it’s irresponsible. When crafted together, strong content and human-centered, empathetic design creates an optimal user experience. Learn how to incorporate content strategy into your process without sacrificing design, and how doing so will result in a better product for your users.

1. What’s Next:
The Overlooked
User Experience
Powered by

2. Welcome
José Arteaga
Consulting Analyst
Ogilvy Consulting
Brittney Urich
Experience Designer
Ogilvy

3. Tell us
where you
are dialing
in from!
What’s the weather
like in your city?

4. Do you
want this
deck?
It will be available for download
shortly after the webinar on:
slideshare.net/socialogilvy
And the recording up on
facebook.com/OgilvyConsulting

5. 1 2 3 4
What is
experience
content?
Why should I
care about it?
What makes
said content
effective?
How does it fit
into the design
process?

6. Content strategy guides the creation,
delivery, and governance of useful,
usable content.
“
- Brain Traffic

7. ProcessStructure
ExperienceEditorial
Content
Strategy
Content design
Systems design

8. Blogs posts, ads,
press releases,
white papers
EDITORIAL CONTENT
Instructions, error
messages, tooltips,
CTAs, links
EXPERIENCE CONTENT

9. Instructions, error
messages, tooltips,
CTAs, links
EXPERIENCE CONTENT

10. That’s great, but why should I care
about this so-called experience
content?
“
- Lots of people

11. Because your credibility is on
the line.

12. Because content has a
business impact.

13. Because design and content
are both part of the
user experience.

14. Embrace the
overlaps
Translating brand personality into
digital experiences
Creating an informed information
architecture
Mapping user journeys
Identifying user needs

15. But if content strategy is so important,
how have we been designing without it
all these years?
“
- A wise webinar attendee

16. We’ve been designing
ineffective content.

17. Common content faux pas

18. Unhelpful help

19. Confirm shaming

20. Unexplained errors

21. Error shaming

22. Confusing CTAs

23. Content that simply doesn’t fit

24. You’ve found some amazing examples of
bad content. But how do I know if my
content is working?
“
- You, probably

25. Enter the experience scale

26. 2
Beyond a typical
heuristic
Spans usability, brand
identity, content, and
category-specific
experience factors.
3
Actionable
Scoring
Provides high-level,
digestible scores for each
major experience pillar.
1
Proprietary
framework
Consists of 100+ experience
principles and guidelines,
distilled down into 30 core
evaluation criteria.

27. Our
Process
Content should be
easy to find and
interact with.
Findable
Content should say
the right things at the
right time.
Useful
Content should
address a user pain
point.
Meaningful
Content should be
trustworthy and
communicative.
Credible
Content should be
responsible
and clear.
Accurate
1 2 3 4 5
27
Content principles

28. These content principles are helpful,
but also incredibly vague.
“
- Everyone listening

29. Content should be easy to find and interact with.
Findable

30. Content should address a user pain point.
Useful

31. Content should say the right things at the right time.
Meaningful

32. Content should be trustworthy and communicative.
Credible

33. Content should be responsible and clear.
Accurate

34. Okay, but how does content strategy fit
into experience design? Are you about
to throw off my whole process?
“
- A concerned designer

35. In a word, yes.

36. Resist the temptation to put design first.

37. It can feel better to start with design.

38. 1. What information lives in this design?
2. Are we sure that’s the right content?
3. Who’s going to create it?
4. Does anyone even care about this?
But we also need to know:

39. But my client/boss/coworker/neighbor
wants me to design first.
“
- Every designer ever

40. Design and content
should inform one
another.

41. Resist the temptation
to put design first.1
Align
2
Discover
3
Create

42. ALIGN
Determine how your
brand translates
to digital.

43. 1. Do we have a clearly defined brand voice?
2. What does it sound like in an error message? When a
user succeeds?
Questions to ask:

44. ALIGN
Determine how your
brand translates
to digital.
ALIGN
Don’t assume that
content will happen
on its own.

45. 1. What content resources do we have on the team?
2. Can they help? In what capacity?
3. Who is responsible for the content?
Questions to ask:

46. ALIGN
Determine how your
brand translates
to digital.
ALIGN
Don’t assume that
content will happen
on its own.
ALIGN
Define your content
goals and principles.

47. 1. Do we have a goal for this content? What is it?
2. How will we accomplish that goal?
3. How will we know we’ve been successful?
Questions to ask:

48. DISCOVER
Make content a
priority from
the start.

49. 1. How did the user get here?
2. What prior knowledge do they have?
3. What will help them get where they need to go?
Questions to ask:

50. DISCOVER
Make content a
priority from
the start.
DISCOVER
Ask what users need,
not what we want
them to know.

51. 1. What is this user trying to do or learn?
2. What questions do they have?
3. Where do they need to go next?
Questions to ask:

52. DISCOVER
Make content a
priority from
the start.
DISCOVER
Ask what users need,
not what we want
them to know.
DISCOVER
Evaluate the content
that already exists.

53. 1. What can we keep?
2. What are we missing?
3. How useful is this content, really?
Questions to ask:

54. CREATE
Work in tandem with
the content folks.

55. 1. What content do you think we’ll need to create for
these designs?
2. Can you help?
Questions to ask:

56. CREATE
Test, refine, repeat.
CREATE
Work in tandem with
the content folks.

57. 1. Have we tested this content?
2. Have we reworked the content to incorporate
feedback?
3. Have we tested it again?
Questions to ask:

58. Let’s recap

59. Design and content
should inform one
another.

60. Our
Process
Content should be
easy to find and
interact with.
Findable
Content should say
the right things at the
right time.
Useful
Content should
address a user pain
point.
Meaningful
Content should be
trustworthy and
communicative.
Credible
Content should be
responsible
and clear.
Accurate
1 2 3 4 5
60
Content principles

61. Resist the temptation
to put design first.
CREATE
Collaborate across
disciplines to create and
refine content.
ALIGN
Bring content to the table
on day one, not in the
final countdown.
DISCOVER
Evaluate the content you
have. Understand your
user’s journey.

62. Questions? Reach out to us at:
partner@ogilvy.com

63. Thank you.