8 Steps to Content-First Design

Any digital experience is about creating a conversation with users. Conversations consist of words, tone, even gestures. How can you create a conversation with users without looking at the content of that conversation first? Of course, there are many elements, such as research, analysis, and writing, that go into creating a streamlined, thoughtful conversation. In this talk, I’ll walk you through 8 steps for putting content first in everything you design.

Putting content first means implementing a multi-phase design process. Rather than creating a design and filling in the content after the fact, I’ll introduce a way to use a content-based creative approach that will lead you to a human-centered design in the form of wireframes and visuals. We’ll look at the following steps and more in the content-first design process:
• Content inventories and audits
• Prevision work including conversation maps and content maps
• A prototype based on your findings
• Testing and iterating on your work
• Creating final designs

Who Should Attend?
Anyone who works in product, user experience, or content strategy, content design, or UX writing, as well as the content curious and career seekers.

About Our Speaker

Sarah Johnson is an Assoc. Sr. Manager of Content Strategy at CVS and teaches content strategy at the Bentley University User Experience Center. She has twenty-five years experience at companies such as CVS, TIAA, Fidelity Investments, and Bank of America. She works with content teams to grow both leadership and UX skills. She has run content strategy summits within her UX teams and spear-headed a workshop, The Art of the Difficult Conversation, which she developed in conjunction with Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute. The workshop went on to be offered corporate-wide at TIAA. She’s a graduate of the InnerMBA offered by SoundsTrue, LinkedIn, and NYU.