Content design is saying no

After years of consulting as a content designer and UX writer, there’s one main lesson I had to learn the hard way — content design is about saying no.

Well, the answer is not always no. But more often than most of us are comfortable with. Here’s why.

Quick, cheap fixes don’t work in the long run.

Content designers are often brought in to fix burning issues cheaply. Fast. With a few tweaks to the copy. When I first started working with clients as a content designer I would jot down all the problems that needed fixing and tried to write my way into solving them. All of them. This often meant actually adding more text. And while the changes did have somewhat of a positive effect on performance (e.g. fewer customer service tickets or more people completing a flow), the wins were small and rarely sustainable. After a few projects like this, I knew I had to change my strategy.

Instead of listening to all the problems and agreeing to fix them with copy, I asked the client to prioritize the most important issues. I then only focused on those. I also started making clear design recommendations instead of just writing copy. Could I help people find their way to checkout faster by adjusting copy…