Blog: Content writing and content strategy insights

The careers of five best friends begin to merge in a digital workforce

When I grew up I had four besties. Together we were just like Blyton’s Famous Five. Sure, we didn’t roam the countryside solving mysteries and capturing villains. Golly gosh no! But we did freely roam our cul-de-sac for hours enjoying jolly adventures — at least until dinner time.

After university, we all dispersed into very different jobs — one into journalism, one into strategic planning, one into advertising, one into corporate comms, and I moved from solicitor to information designer.

But in the last five years or so, something funny has happened: all our job descriptions are starting to look the same. Disciplines are merging. My friends and I are doing similar tasks and use the same skillsets.

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User testing your web content leads to happiness

One of the UXNZ 2015 Conference highlights for me was the opening speech by legend US information architect and publisher, Lou Rosenfeld. He talked about how he came up with the design and layout for the books his company publishes. Quite simply, he took his books out and tested them with real people. He wanted to learn whether he could make an age-old product like a hardcopy book easier to use. Turns out you can.

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Writing tip: Editing web content

Editing is always a step-by-step process. And always you start by asking the big questions, such as:

  • Is this web page really necessary?
  • What is this page for? 
  • Who needs it?
  • Is the same information on another page?
  • What do you want people to do after reading this page?
At work when the pressure’s on, what do you do? You apply the 80:20 principle: you skip to a simple Contented system that will fix the majority of problems very fast.

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