Impacting Content Through Tools Design

Today's media landscape has embraced digital as the preferred form of content distribution. This talk explores the powerful impact that the design of creation tools can have on that content, affecting the experience of both creators and consumers alike.

As an editorial tools designer at BuzzFeed, I have the great privilege of working beside innovative authors, producers, and illustrators every day. They transform their ideas into digital content within a suite of tools, which, for better or for worse, inevitably influences the end product. We often focus our efforts on addressing the needs of our direct user, the creator, by improving the usability of tools like our CMS. However, we must also carefully consider the larger role we have in shaping an experience for our user’s user, the consumer.

From internal to consumer-facing products, many of us are designing systems that help people make things – whether that means writing a blog post, publishing a product listing, or a crafting a fundraising campaign. In the case of authoring digital content, I'll explain how the design decisions we make for tools can help improve the output that those tools produce.

You'll learn:

• The role of tools in creation and learning, within and beyond the publishing industry
• How to identify the right user needs to address in order to make a meaningful impact on content
• How to mitigate the challenges of designing for creators
• Strategies for crafting the best experiences for both your user and your user’s user

http://photos3.meetupstatic.com/photos/event/9/e/d/1/600_457000657.jpeg

Lindsey Maratta is a product designer at BuzzFeed, focused on content creation and curation tools, and a core contributor to Solid (http://solid.buzzfeed.com/), the company’s open-source front end style guide. She was previously a freelance designer and a founding member and design lead of Spartle, an Australian-based social fitness startup.