Article — — 1,082 words

Content design — Information architecture — Service design

Illustration - a white square with a teal triangle attached to its right edge, with the point of the triangle to the right

Information architecture normally focuses on the objects that need to be represented in a system. Some human-centred practitioners focus instead on the tasks users need to do. These approaches are sometimes framed in opposition. But combining these techniques can make services and systems easier to use as well as more efficient to manage.

Article — — 1,698 words

Content design — User experience — Web

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Today I have started a new job. But while I’m looking forward, I have also been reflecting, as this moment marks my first real move away from higher education. Despite the differing natures of the three organisations I worked for, there were many parallels across them.

Linknote — — 86 words

Content design — Service design — User experience — User research

Ask us anything — UX Glasgow

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Join me at next week’s UX Glasgow ask us anything event. I will be on a panel of eight human-centred professionals answering your burning questions about user experience, interaction design, user research, content design and service design.

You’ll have the opportunity to join two or three breakout sessions with rooms for your choice of topic.

Register now on Eventbrite

To help us prepare, please if you have the time take two minutes to fill in our short questionnaire where you can submit your questions in advance.

Linknote — — 117 words

Content design — Service design — Technology — User experience

Lessons on readability and bias — Reflections from the UCD Gathering conference — Website and Communications Blog

Back in October, I had the opportunity to attend the UCD Gathering conference, a new virtual event for practitioners of user-centred design in all its forms. Over on my work blog, I have published the first of two posts reflecting on what I learned.

This first post covers two themes:

  • Being aware of bias, and other cognitive considerations
  • Improving readability of content

The post also mentions my own session at the conference, about our user research into the needs of staff and students working with course materials online. The Learn Foundations project has proved fortuitous in that it has helped schools move their teaching online and prepare for hybrid teaching in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

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Accessibility — Content design — User experience — Web

Access for all — my final plea for human-centred design — Lizzie Cass-Maran — Website and Communications Blog

Last month our brilliant colleague Lizzie Cass-Maran left our team after more than 10 years. In her final blog post for our team’s blog, she has written this plea to keep humans at the centre of all our decision-making.

For the past few years I’ve been working with Lizzie, I’ve always been impressed at the impact and quality of the work she has delivered in often challenging circumstances. She is a key reason why Website and Communications has such a strong user-centred culture.

Moreover, her impact stretched far beyond our own team. She influenced human-centred approaches across the entire university. She has played a genuinely leading role in our communities of practice. The effective digital content training that she has designed ensures that our content editors will continue to create well-written content that meets users’ needs.

Most recently, she did most of the heavy lifting in a project to revolutionise the university’s editorial style guide. The outcome of this is that, for the first time, we have a unified style guide that is designed for use across all content, print and digital, being managed across organisational silos.

Our team genuinely will not be the same without her.

Linknote — — 55 words

Content design — Human-centred approaches — User experience — Web

Work:

We’re hiring a Senior Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog

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The University of Edinburgh Website and Communications team is hiring a Senior Content Designer. Come and join my team!

If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we want to hear from you.

Read the blog post to learn more about the position and how to apply.

Linknote — — 96 words

Content design — User experience

Content strategy: Beware the chatty tone of voice — Lauren Ellis — Humanising Technology Blog

"Beware the chatty brand voice"

The perils of using an overly-familiar tone of voice in your copy. There are some cracking examples here of support content that prioritises daft quips over getting to the point.

You’ve ordered a package and you want to know how long delivery will take. It’s a straight forward question, so you would expect to find out quickly and easily. What you don’t need is a couple lines of heavily branded content standing between you and your answer. You just want to know how long the delivery will take…

Users are task-led and time-poor.