Same ball, different code? 5 things to read on content design and communications
Content design and communications look alike from the sideline. Both plan before they draft. Both think hard about the audience. So a plan is not what tells them apart.
Think of rugby league and rugby union. Same ball, same posts, and both pass it backwards. Watch for a few minutes, though, and the rules are plainly different.
The difference is whose outcome the plan is written for. Content design plans for a task the user needs to complete. Communications plans for what the organisation needs people to think or do. These 5 reads show the rules of each code.
1. GOV.UK on content design: start with the user need
Where to find it: Understand content design, in the GOV.UK content and publishing guidance
What it is: the GOV.UK summary of what good content design involves.
Read it for: the starting point. 'Content design starts by taking a user need and meeting it on GOV.UK in the best way possible.' It also lists options that depend on the user need. They include reducing the amount, splitting one big piece into smaller ones, or removing content.
A plan that can end with less content is a content design plan.
2. OASIS: start with the policy aim
Where to find it: OASIS: planning government communications, on communications.gov.uk
What it is: the UK government's planning framework for communicators, in steps from objectives to evaluation.
Read it for: the communications starting point. It says to 'always start with the overarching policy aim'. Every objective must be 'explicitly linked to changing attitudes or behaviours'. It also tells communicators to test key messages with representative groups.
The starting point is the policy, not a task the user needs to complete.
3. Defra on social media and content design: similar, but separate
Where to find it: Moving from social media to content design, on the Defra digital blog
What it is: a 2022 post by a Defra content designer who moved across from social media.
Read it for: a view from someone who has played both codes. Social media is the communications side here. The author says there is 'some crossover' with content design, but calls them 'entirely different disciplines'. In UK government, the author writes, social media roles tend to sit in communications directorates, and content design in digital and technology branches. 'They’re similar, but separate.'
4. Content design and communications in one APS workshop
Where to find it: Content planning, on APS Academy
What it is: an Australian Public Service (APS) guide to a 2-hour workshop for 5 to 6 people.
Read it for: a content plan the whole team can understand, with the user first and the business still in the room. The page sets it out like this:
Invite the people involved in requesting, writing, checking and communicating content.
Start with a user focus. You can do this by creating a user story: 'As a [who the user is] I need [something] so that I can [do something].'
Draft acceptance criteria for what the user understands or can do, and complete them at the end.
Work through the user task or need first, then business goals, including the corporate plan and any legal mandate.
Promotion gets its own heading too.
For the conversation to have before anyone books the room, read the first conversation in government content design.
5. GOV.UK on user needs: the test that tells them apart
Where to find it: Identify user needs, in the GOV.UK content and publishing guidance
What it is: GOV.UK guidance on finding and writing user needs.
Read it for: the sharpest test on this list. A user need has to be based on an action or task. The guidance is wary of needs that rest on 'understand', 'know' or 'be aware of'. It allows 'understand' and 'be aware of' only when the user needs to know something to complete a task. It also rejects a 'need' written 'to justify existing content'.
A goal that people simply be aware of something, with no task behind it, does not pass this test.
Take your team's last few content plans and read the first line of each. Does it name a task a user needs to complete? Or does it name what the organisation wants people to think?
Neither answer is wrong. They are different codes, with different rules.
Just make sure your team knows which one it is playing.
Read why it matters
The standards and the free resources in this article.
Put it into practice
Work through the foundations of content design using your own work and guided prompts.
Join Content Co Studio