WHAT DOES A CONTENT DESIGNER DO?

Published: August 14, 2024 - The Content Designer role involves creating customer-facing content based on inputs from multiple internal stakeholders, ensuring content remains updated and relevant through regular reviews. This position also collaborates with the localization team to facilitate multilingual support and writes scripts for instructional videos to enhance user understanding and engagement. Additionally, the role demands a balance of creative and analytical skills to support digital initiatives and improve user experiences across various platforms.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Content Designer

1. Content Designer Duties

  • Stakeholder Engagement: Meet with top-level stakeholders and the CIO about content requests.
  • Communications Planning: Work with top-level stakeholders to create a communications plan.
  • Team Collaboration: Collaborate with other content designers, content strategists, UX designers, and visual designers to create deliverables.
  • User Experience Understanding: Understand that content design, UX design, and visual design work together to create a great user experience.
  • Content Creation: Create effective and compelling content based on the needs of the stakeholder.
  • Content Publishing: Publish blog posts, websites, and emails using IBM software.
  • Content Clarity: Ensure content is clear, concise, and easy to understand.
  • Best Practices Execution: Exhibit expertise in defining and executing content best practices.
  • IBM Style Compliance: Write to meet IBM Style guidelines and standards.
  • Cross-functional contribution: Contribute to a product team of designers, researchers, product managers, and engineers.
  • Product Narratives Creation: Create strategic product narratives for a diverse product portfolio.
  • Complex Feature Communication: Communicate complex product features in ways that speak up to users and help them understand and use products.

2. Content Designer Details

  • Content Creation: Create customer-facing content to answer common questions and provide how-to steps for tasks on Ancestry based on information from product managers, UX designers, user researchers, genealogists, scientists, and the legal department.
  • Content Updating: Review and update current support articles due to changes in the user experience or guidance from internal partners.
  • Localization Partnership: Partner with the localization team to ensure the timely translation of content into multiple languages.
  • Script Writing: Write scripts for video tutorials about performing basic activities on Ancestry.
  • Feedback Gathering: Proactively gather feedback about the support center and its content from employees who communicate with customers daily.
  • Workflow Analysis: Identify difficult or complex customer workflows and provide feedback to internal partners.
  • Digital Support: Support a broad range of digital initiatives and interactive experiences including, but not limited to, interface and feature development, product pages, landing pages, live chat, SEO, videos, and digital applications.
  • Creative Balance: Balance creative and conceptual thinking with sensitivity to broader business strategies and customer needs.
  • Copy Testing: Plan and run copy-based tests and optimizations, with a view to constantly improve conversion and ease of use on key digital customer journeys.
  • UX Collaboration: Collaborate with UX designers to facilitate user testing to help validate decisions and inform proposed changes.
  • Copywriting: Write and proofread digital copy of the highest quality.

3. Content Designer Responsibilities

  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Operate as part of a cross-functional team including design, research, engineering, marketing, and project managers to participate in design sprints, test ideas, and ensure language quality.
  • Content Strategy Development: Continually improve and evolve content strategies and optimize for cohesion across products and experiences.
  • UI Text Writing: Write and edit friendly, brilliantly clear UI text and conversational dialogue.
  • Data-Driven Content: Use multiple sources of customer data to inform content strategy and day-to-day optimizations.
  • Brand Voice Understanding: Understand and evangelize brand voice and tone.
  • Strategic Influence: Offer a content strategy perspective throughout the product development process and influence strategic decisions across and within products to improve the overall experience and ensure consistency across platforms.
  • Multichannel Writing: Write clear and concise content across multiple touchpoints, including product names, labels, navigational elements, emails, tutorials, help articles, audio and video scripts, and notifications.
  • UX Documentation Support: Support the creation of UX documentation—flows, scenarios, wireframes, navigation models, prototypes, etc., to communicate concepts and designs.
  • Content Testing Partnership: Partner with researchers, product designers, and customer success to test and optimize content.
  • Copy Testing Collaboration: Work with Product, Design, and Engineering to define, test, and iterate in-product copy.
  • Content Validation: Work with the UX Research team to test and validate that content is clear and memorable.
  • Content Design Scaling: Develop tools and frameworks to help scale Content Design across the organization.
  • Copy Standards Setting: Set a scalable copy standard and drive adherence to Content Design best practices based on industry standards, internal learnings, branding guidelines, research, and data.

4. Content Designer Job Summary

  • UX Collaboration: Collaborate with UX design peers to build the best product experiences to help businesses and people achieve their goals.
  • Design Tool Proficiency: Edit and contribute to designs and content in Figma, Sketch, or other design tools.
  • Cross-Functional Collaboration: Collaborate daily with peers in engineering, design, research, marketing, and data science to take products from conception to launch.
  • Localization Partnership: Partner with internationalization and localization teams to ensure product experiences are of the highest quality in every language.
  • Product Influence: Demonstrate sound judgment and influence product decisions, team direction, and strategy.
  • API Standards Assistance: Assist in the creation of a catalog of API technical standards.
  • Information Architecture Design: Assist in the design of the structural foundation of the digital information environment to allow core users (regulators, academic researchers, standard bodies) to find the information they need quickly and effectively.
  • User Research Planning: Assist in planning, designing, and conducting user research sessions to support the design and development of the library.
  • Standards Research: Research and provide engaging and accurate summaries of standards for the website.
  • Stakeholder Feedback Identification: Identify options to obtain feedback from key stakeholders (both internal and external).

5. Content Designer Accountabilities

  • Agile Collaboration: Work within a fast-paced, agile delivery environment, as part of a multidisciplinary team working with researchers, UX designers, business analysts, and product managers.
  • Content Design Planning: Plan appropriate user-centered content design approaches based on strategic priorities, project requirements, desired outcomes, and constraints.
  • User-Centric Content Design: Design content that meets user needs, considering and, where appropriate, challenging any legal or policy constraints to ensure that information is easy for users to understand and act upon.
  • Information Architecture Planning: Plan content flows, journeys, and information architecture that are intuitive for users to navigate through an end-to-end service or product.
  • Content Type Selection: Select the most appropriate content type to meet user needs in a given context, e.g., text, images, videos, and online/offline.
  • Web Writing Best Practices: Understand and adhere to best practices for writing for the web.
  • Content Accessibility: Ensure content is accessible to everyone, including users with visual, hearing, mobility, and cognitive impairments, achieving AA standard as a minimum.
  • Content Iteration Recommendations: Provide and implement recommendations for content iterations or improvements based on regular user research, analytics, behavioral data, and testing feedback.
  • UX Content Vision: Help create an industry-leading vision for UX content in autonomous vehicles.
  • Content Strategy Ownership: Own content strategy and UX writing across app and voice interfaces.
  • Holistic Experience Crafting: Partner with product designers to craft holistic end-to-end experiences.
  • User-Aligned Content: Work with researchers to make sure UX content is in tune with users.