Weeknote: the value of asking questions

The last couple of weeks have been a good reminder that one of the most valuable parts of content design isn't writing – it's asking questions.

I've been working across a few different clients recently, from council forms and service content to a museum Local Gov Drupal microsite. They're all very different projects, but they all seem to start in the same way: by asking questions that nobody has quite asked before.

Reusable patterns for forms and emails

We've continued working on new forms through Liberty Create for a few council services, and it's been really satisfying to see some consistency emerge.

We're starting to build reusable content patterns instead of treating each one as a blank canvas. Things like how we ask questions, when we explain why we're asking for information and how we write help text consistently.

Alongside that, I've been working on bin collection content and, importantly, the emails that are sent afterwards. It's easy to focus on the website and forget about everything that happens next. But emails are just as much a part of the service.

Too often emails are treated as technical templates rather than content. They can be inconsistent, poorly formatted or simply tell people that something has happened without explaining what happens next. They're often the last thing someone sees, so they deserve just as much care as the web pages that lead up to them.

Working on a new microsite

Ben and I have also started work on a Civil War Centre microsite, which has been a nice change of pace.

Most of my LocalGov Drupal work is on corporate council websites, where the focus is helping people complete a task as quickly as possible. Microsites are a little different. They're often used for attractions, partnerships or campaigns, where the goal is to encourage people to explore as well as find information.

That gives you a bit more flexibility with imagery and layout, but it also means you have to think more carefully about content structure and consistency because you're creating more of the patterns yourself.

Even in our first meeting with the client, simply asking questions has uncovered gaps in the content and opportunities to tell the story more clearly.

Contact us is only part of the story

I also had the chance to speak briefly at a LocalGov Drupal community meeting, where one of my clients shared some of the work we've been doing around improving the Contact us journey for a council.

One thing I mentioned was that it's easy to put all the emphasis on improving the Contact us page, because it's one of the busiest pages on the site. But if people are ending up there because they couldn't find the right service in the first place, then Contact us isn't really the problem.

The wider opportunity is making service content easier to find, improving search and using language that people actually understand.

The user testing we've done has already shown just how naturally people head for Contact us when they don't know where else to go. That tells us as much about the rest of the website as it does about the Contact us page.

Looking ahead

There are a few exciting projects on the horizon, including helping another council migrate a large planning microsite onto their corporate website. That'll be a sizeable piece of work, but I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it.

For now though, I'm taking a few days off in Spain before heading back for James Blake at Brixton Academy next week. If you haven’t heard his new album Trying Times, I strongly suggest you do.