Content Design

The revised version of Content Design updates the

example that runs through the book. Instead of fracking,
we’re now looking at creating content for a charity
devoted to protecting badgers.

This chapter is completely new content. It fits between

the original chapter 4 (User stories and job stories)
and chapter 5 (Bringing your organisation with you).

1
Content Design

5
Introducing Badgers of Brock
charity
All the way through the book, we pretend you are a content
person working for a charity called Badgers of Brock. Badgers
of Brock is located on a (fictional) UK island called ‘Isle

Journey
of Brock’. The charity is interested in the island’s badger
population, which is under threat from proposed new building
developments.

Badgers are short, stocky mammals that usually have black

and white striped faces. They live in underground ‘setts’,
usually with other badgers. They are omnivores who mostly
feed on earthworms.
mapping
Not everything in Badgers of Brock charity works the way
you’d like it to (because in most organisations, that’s what
happens).

You’re the only content designer, working alongside a digital

and social media manager. They work remotely, as do the rest
of your comms and marketing team. You have to work with
other teams on all your digital content, but you don’t see them
often. They have sign-off control, you don’t.

Throughout the book, we frame content design problems

using examples from Badgers of Brock.

2 3
Content Design Journey mapping

A journey map is a timeline. It’s a series of steps that your Prompt points
audience goes through to get to, and through, your product
The first point in a journey map is a prompt. A prompt is
or service.
the thought, feeling, belief, or perception that starts the
thought process that will eventually lead your audience
If I were to ask what you’ve done today, you may say you did
to your product or service. For example, if you work for a
some work at home or in the office, went for a walk and then
university and your audience is 17-year-olds, their prompt
made pasta for dinner. That sounds all very easy and simple.
may be a teacher telling them that they need to think about
But actually you made millions of decisions today, many of
further education. This then might lead them to searching for
them from your previous experience, a perception you have
information on universities.
or what was in front of you.

Here's another example. Imagine you're having a hard time

For example, if you went into work, you may have checked
sleeping at night and waking up very tired. You might look for
your journey to make sure the trains were running on time.
an app that can help you calm your mind. Either experience
You then made a decision based on that: you changed the
– the difficulty sleeping, or the tiredness on waking up –
time you left or took the car. Decisions about whether you
could be the trigger point. Trigger points can be something
wanted to eat breakfast, had time for it, what you would eat.
that happened a while before you begin your search journey,
All of those decisions are often forgotten about. Your brain
something that's been on your mind or something that
can’t hold on to everything – it has better things to do. But you
continues to have ripple effects in your life. That gap in time
still have to make those decisions. And so does everyone else.
can make it look like a more recent event was the trigger, so
make sure to really investigate that during research.
Every decision point is a potential content point.

Prompts don’t need to be life-changing. It could simply be

That doesn't mean that we need to create content for every
someone is stuck on a bus, bored, and having headphones
single step of the user journey. It means we need to be aware
in their pocket. In which case, funny cat videos might be a
of all the potential decision points so that we can make a
solution to the boredom. The prompt is simply being bored.
conscious decision about whether content should be there.

It's usually enough to identify 5 prompt points, at least to

The main point I want to make is that journey maps should
start with. That gives us a set of patterns that we can use as
always come from research not from assumptions. Going
working assumptions to move forward into further research.
wrong at this stage can make or break your service and undo
any – and possibly all of the work that you do later.
Let me tell you a story…
When I worked at Citizens Advice, the largest advice-giving
charity in the UK, a person came to us and said they would
be homeless in 5 days. They’d been sleeping on the sofa with

4 5
Content Design Journey mapping

friends and family for 2 years. They'd run out of places to

stay. When the adviser unpicked what happened to them, it
turned out that 2 years before they had been made redundant
illegally. In those 2 years they had lost their spouse, home,
access to their children and now their health was in decline.
At the time of his redundancy, when they were looking for
advice, Google showed them numerous posts about how to
write up their CV. Which is useful for some, that doesn’t go
that far enough for this particular person.
This is the crux of
Now this is a theory, but if on the first page of Google and all content strategy
search results said 'check your redundancy notice is legal’
it could have changed this person's life. and content design.
6 words. If you don’t know
Just 6 words in a search result could have given them a
chance to keep their home, family and health.
what actually starts
Some teams will think the prompt is going to Citizens
a journey, you could
Advice and asking for help. But the prompt was actually
2 years before. be missing your
audience.

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Content Design Journey mapping

You can’t go so far back so that all prompt points start with:
‘well, they were born, learnt to use a spoon, got yoghurt in
their ear, then went to school…’

That would be silly.

But I would encourage you to look back a bit further than you
would ordinarily. Just see if there is something there.

As humans,
When planning journeys, you might take a single prompt point
and work the journey. Then you'd take the other prompt points
you found in discovery to see what happens to the journey.

we think we are
They all merge at some point. They always do.

I know what you’re thinking: ‘But Sarah and Rachel, we can’t

terribly special.
possibly do this for every piece of content!’

Why not? How much content do you have, and do you need it?

We’re not.

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Content Design Journey mapping

As you map your 5 prompts from the perspective of your users, Start at the beginning – and that’s
you'll find you're making fewer and fewer additions to your not at your service
journey map. That's because the main point of your content has
been covered by the journeys you've already done. Humans have unconscious thoughts before they make a
conscious decision. Our brain knows what decision it’s going
Be patient. Finding the actual motivation, the intention to make up to 11 seconds before it lets us know.
behind a user need, takes research and a little time. It’s worth
unpicking how your audience got to you, the relationship you We are bombarded with information on many channels
have with them, and how you can change your content to get every day.
them what they need.
If we know what messages are being presented to our
Once you decide what the prompts are, you move to a series audience and on what channels, we have a better chance of
of points of what the person might do next. standing out from the noise. We need to understand what our
audience were thinking before they got to a search engine.

It's easy to just think about your own service

Life Service Life

Digital teams know things can actually work like this

Life Service Life

But if we're honest, it's usually more like this

Service Service Service

Life Life Life

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Content Design Journey mapping

Thoughts and decision points Or using an entire loaf of bread, because you said ‘spread on
bread’, rather than ‘spread on a slice of bread’.
Next comes all of the thought and decision points someone
goes through. In this example, our someone is ‘Bo’, and their It’s a great example of how we don’t always see all the steps
prompt is spotting a badger in their garden. involved in a process.

Bo is a citizen of the Isle of Brock. One evening, they spot And if we think about the badger in the garden, there are
a badger in their back garden. They’ve never seen a badger probably a lot more steps involved. It could look like this:
before in real life, but they remember what badgers look like
1. Spot badger.
from their favourite book as a child. They are worried a badger
2. Decide to check if badger is dangerous.
might be dangerous.
3. Take out phone.
4. Search for ‘badgers dangerous’.
Bo has heard something about badger culling, and has also
5. See the top results saying that badgers are usually
heard that honey badgers are one of the world’s deadliest
not dangerous.
animals.
6. Read some of the top entries.
7. Open the national badger charity website to learn about
Bo is a bit worried.
this type of badger.
8. Discover the Isle of Brock has a unique badger
Bo decides to find out more about badgers.
population that has a protected status.
9. Decide to live side-by-side with the badger.
If I asked most people what the steps are to finding out more
10. Read about what you can do to support badgers in
about badgers, they would probably say:
your garden.
1. Go to Google. 11. Decide to order some peanuts to feed them.
2. Search for ‘badgers’. 12. Go online.
3. Read a Wikipedia entry. 13. Search for peanuts.
14. Select peanuts.
At this point I’m going to sidetrack for a minute and talk about 15. Buy the peanuts.
peanut butter sandwiches (which, incidentally, badgers love). 16. Get a confirmation email.
17. Wait for peanuts to arrive.
Did you ever do the experiment in school where you write 18. Peanuts arrive and start to feed the local badgers.
out instructions for making a peanut butter sandwich? Then
you give those instructions to someone else and they have to Some of those elements can move around. Bo might decide to
make the sandwich, using only the steps you gave them. This order peanuts before they go on to read about badgers on the
leads to funny outcomes, like people spreading peanut butter island. Or Bo might decide delivery takes too long and go to
with their fingers – because you didn’t specify using a knife. the shop instead.

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Content Design Journey mapping

And this journey has a clear prompt – spotting the badger in Prompt, finding, doing and getting
the garden. But other prompts can lead to the same journey.
Any user journey will fall into 4 parts: prompt, finding, doing
and getting.
For example,

• Bo hasn’t seen a badger, but has seen the scratchings Example:

they have made in the garden. Prompt: spot a badger in my garden.
• Bo’s neighbour says they spotted a badger the Finding: research badgers and find that they are usually not
previous night. dangerous and are, in fact, a protected species.
• Bo learns there’s a local development being planned, Doing: buy peanuts to create a badger-friendly garden.
and it might affect the badgers in the area. Getting: peanuts arrive.

These are all different starting points that may end up in It doesn’t have to be so concrete either – this works for
the same place: with Bo learning more about badgers and everything:
deciding to feed them in their garden. Prompt: on a bus and feeling bored.
Finding: search ‘funny cat’ on YouTube.
This journey also shows that the context your user is in Doing: laugh at funny cats.
– their situation – can change their journey. Getting: alleviate my boredom.

In this example, Bo is in the garden, in the evening, when This works in products and services too:
they spot the badger. They pull out their phone to get more Prompt: need to travel to work.
information. Because it’s dark, Bo might use voice search to Finding: search for relevant tickets on my usual app.
find what they’re looking for. And because Bo’s on the phone, Doing: buying the ticket.
they might avoid going to YouTube or other channels that use Getting: travel with all my tickets on my phone.
a lot of data.

But if Bo were in an office and wanted to learn about badgers,

Spot a badger Research if Buy Peanuts
the journey might start differently. Bo might log into a desktop in my garden badgers are peanuts arrive
computer and go straight to video content, because they have dangerous

a reliable broadband connection and aren’t paying for data.

If Bo were in a bookshop, they would ask someone for the Prompt Finding Doing Getting

wildlife section, and look for a book on British mammals.

All these prompts and situations might be different, but lead

to the same journey.

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Content Design Journey mapping

Channel mapping
Your audience will be taking in information from a variety of
sources, and you should show those in your journey map. As
the content designer at Badgers of Brock charity, you need to
know what is being said where.

Spotted this guy in the garden this evening! Never

By this point, Bo is interested in the badger they spotted in seen one before! So cool! Love that we have them
in our neighbourhood.
the garden. They’ve delved in a little deeper and are reassured 15:51

that badgers aren’t dangerous (at least, not European badgers

– honey badgers are a different story).
One of the responses is from a local farmer:

Bo’s journey continues. They:

• sign up to the Badgers of Brock charity newsletter,

badgers spread disease and TB. They’re
responsible for my cattle getting sick. Hate

• follow Badgers of Brock on social media,

badgers and don’t want them nearby. Bring back
the badger cull!

• start a regular donation to the charity.

15:52

As a content designer, you can find information about this part

of Bo’s journey from within your organisation. There will be These are all channels and content that you won’t necessarily
information you can get from different teams to find out more be seeing. But they will be forming part of Bo’s mental model
about how people like Bo are interacting with the charity. and user journey.

But Bo is also getting letters about a local development You won’t know all the steps that are happening in all of the
planned for the green space behind their garden. The journeys. You also can’t design all of the content that people
developers are writing to locals with the proposed plans, and will come across. But it’s useful to think about what people
residents can submit written objections. might be experiencing, and what steps will bring them to
your content.
Bo also shares their badger sighting in the neighbourhood
WhatsApp group. The only way you will really know what people are
thinking is through user research, and speaking directly
to people. But the desk research you've now done will give
you insight into their online behaviours.

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Content Design Journey mapping

A note about mental models The 3 Rs: reflect, rebut, re-educate

A mental model is an explanation of how someone thinks There are 3 things you can do with content:
something works in the real world. They are important if
you want to really understand your audience. Reflect, rebut, re-educate.

Mental models: You are either:

• are based on beliefs, not facts, • reflecting the audience’s mental models,
• influence people’s future actions, • rebutting their mental models (completely going against
• determine how they talk about things. what your audience thinks), or
• re-educating your audience.
Mental models tell us how people think and how they
organise their thoughts about your topic in their head. But
mental models are also about what people believe to be true
or false, and their preconceptions. No one comes to your
content knowing nothing; people make assumptions or might
have information from other sources.

One example is to think about a restaurant. When you go to

a restaurant, you probably wait to be seated. You expect a
menu, and someone to take your order. Then you will wait for
someone to bring you food, and at the end of the meal, you’ll
pay a bill. You don’t need someone to explain the steps to
you, because you have previous experience and expectations
of how a restaurant works.

That’s a mental model.

Our content should either work with, challenge, or change our

user’s mental model. Sometimes it can do all 3! Challenging
and changing are obviously much harder things to do, but
let’s look at the ‘3 Rs’ to understand how they work.

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Content Design Journey mapping

Reflect Rebut
When we reflect a user’s mental model, we're taking their This is where you are going completely against your audience.
idea, belief or perception about a task and agreeing with them It may be because their mental model doesn’t match with
about how it works. We will guide them through the process your organisation’s views, or a process doesn’t work the way
but they already know what should be happening. This is the they want or expect it to. This is the hardest type of content.
easiest type of journey for your audience. If we work the way
the user wants to work, they will find it intuitive. It’s human nature that over time, people build up mental
models of how the world works. If your content goes against
An example of this may be online booksellers. Your audience someone’s mental model, they’ll find it harder to accept. It will
member knows that they go into a physical bookshop, head be harder for you to change their mind.
to the fiction section, go to period dramas, look at the covers,
read the blurb, make a selection, pay and leave. Online, if the Not impossible, but hard.
journey was similar it would look like:
You see this all the time in politics. If someone has
well‑established political views, they are likely to dismiss
anything the opposition says. Even if it is factually correct,
Homepage Choose Choose Browse
fiction period titles they are unlikely to believe it because it doesn’t fit with their
dramas
mental model.

Organisations that campaign around a particular cause will

do this all the time. In Badgers of Brock, you will probably
Make a Pay Leave
selection the site come across this with your badger cull content. Groups that
are convinced that badgers are vicious and spread disease are
going to be hard to convince otherwise. You can present facts
and evidence, but this is your hardest mental model to change.

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Content Design Journey mapping

Re-educate Many advisors say part of the process is to teach the person
how to go through the process of debt management (rebut)
This is when your audience thinks things are one way, but are
so that they know how to not get into debt again. Or at very
open to understanding that things may be different to what
least, if they do get into debt again they will know how to deal
they first thought.
with it (re-educate).

If you think back to our restaurant example, you might go into

a restaurant and queue up at the counter to order. If someone
tells you actually, it’s table service and you can take a seat,
that’s a very gentle re-education happening.

If we go back to that badger cull content, a re-educate mental

model means the audience may not have known the facts
before, and they can see the arguments against culling.
Users with this mental model are open to learning what your
organisation has to say.

Reflect and re-educate

An example of this is ‘myth busting’ pages. You have the myth
as the heading and then show people the truth underneath.
You are reflecting and then re-educating.

Example
Are UK badgers dangerous? (reflect)

Badgers are only aggressive if they are cornered or

threatened, (rebut) but left alone they will probably
not cause you any harm (re-educate).

Rebut and re-educate

At Citizens Advice we had people coming into a bureau asking
for help with their debt problems. If you ask the user in that
instance what they want to do they will say ‘I want you to get
rid of my debt’.

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Content Design Journey mapping

Cross-sell Your intended audience member now has the answer they
are looking for. This means their brain has space for new
If your organisation is selling something, or offering a paid-for
information. So at the bottom of the page you add a link to
service, you can use the 3 Rs to cross-sell too.
your online shop, where they can buy a Badgers of Brock
hedgehog feeding station.
Cross-sell is basically adding on a purchase to the
user’s journey.
The audience can support the charity’s work with a purchase.
Buying a feeder helps keep hedgehogs safe. And you’ve done
How is this content design, you might ask?
it all with a page of content. Nice one!

Because before your user can make that purchase, you need
to satisfy their initial user need. You need to give them what
they need to know, or want to do. So you start with your users’
mental model on the topic.

Let's take an example. Hedgehogs are adorable spikey little

creatures. They’re often found in the same sorts of areas
as badgers.

Imagine an Isle of Brock resident found a hedgehog in their

garden, as well as a badger. They have hit the wildlife jackpot!
But they do a quick internet search and discover that badgers
are a hedgehog’s main predator.

Now they think badgers and hedgehogs can’t coexist in

their garden.

Good content reflects this – we have a page called ‘Badgers

and hedgehogs in your garden’. The first line will rebut and
say that while badgers are predators, they will usually leave
hedgehogs alone unless they are very hungry.

It will then re-educate, or rebut: they can live together in your

garden, but it’s a good idea to separate out feeding areas and
make sure the hedgehog is protected while it eats.

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Content Design Journey mapping

Running a journey mapping session

Ideally you work in a team with lots of people who are all
really engaged and want to do a journey mapping session
with you. But if you need to, you can do parts of this on your
own and get people involved at a later stage.

When I run journey mapping sessions, I invite everybody.

Marketing, legal, comms, the digital team – anyone who has
We don’t need
a stake. If we have a service that relies on direct marketing,
press or PR, then we will invite those teams too. to say no. The
You should have:

• the content designer,

question is
•
•
•
the user researcher,
the product or web designer,
marketing and comms,
always: ‘where
• anyone who might get in the way.

There are 2 reasons for this.

does that
1. Opening up a journey mapping session shows that
you respect the other disciplines that surround your
content fit on
this journey?’
work. You understand how information flows and that
you want the best for your audience and organisation,
not just your team.
2. Sharing research and skills can save time and effort,
if everyone knows what is going on from the start.

When we inevitably get to a point where somebody wants

content somewhere and the digital team doesn't think it's a
very good idea.

26 27
Content Design Journey mapping

This is where your research is important. Everyone can have Be scrappy

an opinion. It’s your audience that has the answers. They have
When you are first creating your user journey maps, I’d
what you need to do to best serve them.
recommend post-its and a wall. If you are working remotely,
there are different tools you can use to do something similar.
Respecting experience
The reason is that humans are messy. When you are doing
When running a session, bringing user needs and evidence
your research, you may update and move your journey around.
into the room rather than relying on internal opinion and
We find that as soon as it is in a pristine, perfectly designed
anecdotes can be challenging. It can be confronting. Some
document, people don’t want to move things around. This
people see it as threatening: like we don’t believe them and
can lead to great opportunities being missed. I’d recommend
their 20 years’ of expertise. That is not the case and we need
being as scrappy as you like until you are sure you have all
to be very clear at the start and all the way through that we
the relevant details. Then put it into a glorious document like
are not calling into question anyone’s experience. We are
this one:
adding data to it so all the teams after us have a thorough
grounding of concrete research to work from.

28 29
Content Design Journey mapping

Credit: Hinrich von Haaren, ‘Content Transformation’

30 31
Content Design Journey mapping

Pain points
Pain points are subjective so we need to learn from our

Content
audience what pain is. For example: if you have videos on
your journey and there are no captions or transcripts, any
deaf person or anyone without headphones and in a public
space may miss out on your content. That's a pain point.

There are also times content can cause physical or emotional

pain. For example, a page that requires a lot of scrolling might
be painful for someone with limited mobility. A page full of
can’t fix a
bad service.
insensitive content can be upsetting. We want to avoid these
kinds of pain points too.

It can help,
When I do journeys, I write out these pain points on pink
post‑its and turn them sideways so they are like diamonds.
The reason for this is two-fold: for one thing, you pay
attention, and for another, you see clearly how many problems

but it can’t
you have with your product or service.

Content exposes problems.

save it.

32 33
Content Design Journey mapping

We have many examples of when we have run a content Empathy mapping

journey and ended up designing a service. Discovery,
There are many books, blogs and courses on empathy
research and journey mapping can actually show you how bad
mapping so I’ll just go into one example here.
your service is, how confusing the journey is or how people
don’t understand what you are trying to communicate. This
is why a multi-disciplinary team is always a good idea, you Say Think
probably won’t be able to solve all those problems through
content alone.

Feel Do

Using this model, complete each section of the map with

what you think your users are saying, thinking, feeling and
doing. This will come from your research and from thinking
about your audience’s perspective.

It’s okay to have different (even conflicting) feelings, thoughts,

and so on in each square – your audience is not just one
person.

Do this for every step of your journey. You may end up

skimming over some points as they are too similar to other
sections, but don’t ignore them altogether – you’ll miss too
much valuable information.

For example, if the prompt point is spotting a badger in the

34 35
Content Design Journey mapping

garden, the empathy map may be:

People also ask :

Are UK badgers aggressive?

Say Think Are badgers rare in UK?

What is that in the garden? That’s huge!

Is a badger an aggressive animal?
Is it dangerous?
What is the UK’s largest predator?
Is that really a badger
or a very fat cat? Are badgers a danger to dogs?

What should you do if you encounter a badger?

Feel Do
Disbelief Search online
Nervous for ‘badgers’ If you go into these results, you will see that badgers aren’t as
dangerous as the common search questions initially suggest.
Curious

People also ask :

If you start the journey at your service, when someone Are UK badgers aggressive?

has already got to your site, you are missing the wealth of
Badgers are usually wary of humans. In most cases, a badger’s first reaction to
language and emotion that brought them to you. Empathy danger is to escape into the nearest sett. If cornered, individual animals may be
more agressive.
mapping can help you find the intention and prompt points.
daera-ni.gov.uk
https://www.daera-ni.gov.uk > articles > advice-badgers

Advice on badgers | Department of Agriculture, Environment

A note about search engines and what and Rural...
they do Search for: Are UK badgers agressive?

If you search for ‘badgers’, like Bo did, you can see the impact
of content design in action.
But from a first glance, you might think they are scary. Google
has brought a lot of results about danger to the top. This may
On Google, the top results are taken from what people most
not be an accurate first impression, but it's clearly common.
commonly search for. In our badger search, you get a stack
These initial search results reflect some users’ fears right
of questions people have asked that suggest badgers are
back at them.
dangerous.

If you go into a different search engine, for example Ecosia,

the results talk about badgers’ fascinating lives instead.

36 37
Content Design Journey mapping

badger
We’re not as special as we think
we are
We don’t always know exactly what our audience is thinking,
feeling and doing at every moment. But we often think that
we are terribly unique. And it’s simply not true. If you watch or
YouTube YouTube YouTube
Badgers : animated music Stoffel, the honey badger Venom Vaccine | Ultimate listen to laboratory research, you will generally find patterns
video : MrWeebi that can escape from Honey Badger
anywhere – BBC forming after 5 participants. Sometimes you can see patterns
Jun 28, 2008 Apr 10, 2014 Dec 30, 2013 after 3. You can then take these patterns into further research
until you’re comfortable that you’ve got the right solution.
See more videos

https://en.wikipedia.org > wiki > Badger

Badger - Wikipedia
Badgers are a polyphyletic rather than a natural taxonomic grouping, being united by their
squat bodies and adaptations for fossorial activity. All belong to the caniform suborder of
carnivoran mammals.

https://www.badgertrust.org.uk > badgers

About UK Badgers and their fascinating lives | Badger Trust

Badgers are short, stout, powerful animals that lives in underground ‘setts’ than can extend
well over 50 metres long! Members of the mustelid family (which includes pine martins, otters,
polecats, ferrets and the wolverine), the European badgers’ range extends from Britain, acros...

You can see from this how your headings, and the first words
you write (that search engines pick up and use), can influence
how people feel about:

• the subject,
• your content,
• your organisation.

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Content Design Content Design

Caveat Want to read on?

You will always have exceptions. You may have 1 person in 8 Enjoyed this sample chapter? If you want to read more
who will struggle with the concept. In that instance, you can of the complete new, second edition of ‘Content Design’,
think about how you might make your content better to bring visit our website: https://contentdesign.london/books
that person along, too. But in the end you need to make a
judgement call about whether you are going to change your
product or service.

Note: ‘exceptions’ does not mean disabled people. An

accessible, usable, inclusive service should be a basic for
all organisations. “The essential text
Once you know how people might be thinking and feeling
for anyone starting
about you, you can move on to how they are communicating out or honing their
about you. craft to make things
So far, you’ve done your research and discovery work, and better for users.”
written some stories. In many organisations, you’ll need to get Neil Williams, Executive
sign-off from above before you can go much further. So let’s Director at the BFI and
look at how to get that. former Head of GOV.UK.

Buy the book in print or ebook format at:

https://contentdesign.london/books

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