Sarah Richards

Sarah Richards created the field of content design as she revamped GOV.UK's web presence. From a messy amalgam of hundreds of government websites, she created a user-focused "storefront" where UK citizens could get their most common questions answered.

Always focused on her users' needs, Sarah developed an approach and methodologies that can help anyone design, create, and manage better content.

Sarah and I talked about:

the origin story behind the field of content design

the importance of people (80%) over tech (20%) in digital transformation

Sarah's diabolical scheme to wrest control of government content from department heads

her commitment to a user-focused approach to content design

how to get high-level buy-in for a big project

balancing business goals with user needs

the folly of "push" publishing

using pair writing and crits to improve content

Sarah is the author of the edifying and amazingly designed book, Content Design.

Sarah's Bio

Sarah spent 10 years working in digital government, ending as Head of Content Design for the UK Government Digital Service. There she created and developed content design as a discipline for the GOV.UK. Sarah now runs the Content Design Centre, training and consulting in content strategy and content design for organisations and governments around the world.

Video

Here's the video version of our conversation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UpsazMWxx8

Show Notes/"Transcript"

[Not an actual transcript - just my quick notes on first listen-through]

0:00 - intro

1:15 - Sarah intro - actually started in design - had the dungarees and half-shaved head, and "terribly arty-farty" - heard that copywriters made more money - "massively mercenary" at age 19 - better now :) - then on to editorial and checking grammar and then on to "what is content?", where should it go? - then user-centered at GDS

2:15 - when did you articulate the field of "content design"?

2:35 - conversation with boss at GDS, late 2010/early 2011 - outside in freezing cold - Tom Loosemore, GDS director and founder - he said, "Tell me about editorial in government. What do you want? If you had anything, what would it be? Blank sheet. Go." - and she went off - years of frustration with infrastructure, leadership, etc. - "Content people should not be stuck with just words because we have developers on this project. We have designers sitting right next to us."

- if audience needs a calculator, or calendar or other tools, give it to them - need to change the way government thinks about content team; spent a lot of time thinking about how to speak to audience but not to each other - and that's where content design came from - they were designing with designers, developers, user researchers - across the government, folks were laughing, "Oh, that's what you call yourselves now." - editors, copywriters were doing their best but had had trouble pulling it all together - now, idea that they were just proofreaders and grammar checkers stops now - now we design content for user need -

5:35 - great origin story

6:00 - percentage of her work is people stuff vs. word stuff?

6:05 - 80% people - "digital transformation is very little about the tech. It's mostly about the people." - you can just analyze tech and decide - content is all about who does what, what we'll say, consistency across channels - "It's all people based."

7:10 - how did you come to have control over the gov.uk content?

7:15 - "we created a content management system, and didn't give anybody access." - it was very difficult - big meeting with Tom Loosemore and franchise [department] heads - Tom rolled out new workflow and process - had her charter in place,