During my years of agency work, I collected and created a set of content strategy games inspired by the book Gamestorming. In this session, I'll walk you through my bag of tricks, and arm you with a fun set of discovery and design tools to help you connect with your most skeptical clients and get the content right. I gave this presentation at the 2015 UXDC conference.

1. FUN WITH WORDS
A TOOLKIT FOR DESIGNING
GREAT CONTENT, FIRST.

2. OH HAI!
(this is me)

7. CONTENT FIRST

8. So we can…
build the right thing
the first time

9. get to market quickly
(with a kickass
digital experience)

10. build a connection
through design that
transcends channels

11. ”
To know what content I
need, I have to know what
the page looks like.
–Every designer ever

13. AUDIENCE DEFINITION
Who are you speaking to?
• Who are our audiences?
• Which are the highest priority?
• What kinds of information do they want and
how?
• What are their motivations?

15. DEFINE THE
EXPERIENCE

16. KNOW FEEL FIND ACT
What experience do we want to create?
• What do we want our audiences to know
about us?
• What do we want them to feel?
• What do we want them to find?
• What do we want them to do?
Methodology derived from John Schneider
Activity 1

17. Activity 1

20. JOURNEY MAPPING
What is the journey we want our visitors to take?
Explore the “journeys” key audiences take as the become more
deeply engaged in your organization. Mapping out this
experience helps us:
• Achieve a shared understanding of user needs and goals and
how they relate to the content.
• Identify what content is strong, where the gaps are, and
derive an approach to strengthen conversions.
Methodology derived from Donna LiChaw and Lis Hubert
Activity 2

22. CRAFT THE
MESSAGE

23. IDENTITY PILLARS
What do we want to say and how do we want to say it?
• Organizations define how they are perceived now
and how they want to be in the future.
• Result in a high-level framework to communicate a
brand.
• Defining / sticking to Identity Pillars helps ensure
organizations stay true to themselves.
Methodology derived from Ahava Leibtag
Activity 3

24. IDENTITY PILLARS
What do we want to say and how do we want to say it?
Methodology derived from Ahava Leibtag
Current
Brand
Attributes
Future Brand
Attributes
False Brand
Attributes
Identity
Pillars
How we see
ourselves
now.
How we want
to be seen in
the future.
How we don’t
want to be
seen.
How do we
talk about our
identity.
Activity 3

27. MESSAGING ARCHITECTURE
What do we want to say and how do we want to say it?
Methodology derived from Karen McGrane
As information architecture defines
the blueprint for a site’s functional
and visual design, messaging
architecture defines the blueprint
of all site content.
Activity 4

28. MESSAGING ARCHITECTURE
Primary message
Should capture the “what” and the “why”.
Secondary messages
Provides supporting information answering “who”, “how”,
“when”, and “how much”.
Triggers / change in beliefs desired
What should the user feel / what change should happen in
their mind based on seeing this information?
Methodology derived from Karen McGrane
Activity 4

30. This is hard.

31. But worth it.

32. DESIGN THE
NARRATIVE

33. “TALK BUBBLE”
Let natural language shape the experience
• Conduct a design studio using “talk bubbles.”
• Imagining real conversations helps us design the
right flow / pacing.
• Anticipate customer expectations and create
personalized experiences.
Methodology derived from Steph Hay & Mave Houston
Activity 5

34. Customer
Customer
Capital One
Capital One

36. “TALK BUBBLE”
Facilitate these questions
• What did we like?
• What are some insights we learned?
• What are the biggest pain points for the
customer?
• What questions did people have?
Methodology derived from Steph Hay & Mave Houston
Activity 5

37. LANGUAGE BOARDS
Outline the conversation
• Using what we know, create a “language board” to
focus the design.
• Identify the top 3 things people will ask, and
answer them.
• Script out the conversation from there.
Methodology derived from Steph Hay
Activity 6

38. Language Board
Capital One Home Loans
What this is
A language board serves three purposes:
1. It captures the natural language that starts conversations between us and our customers.
2. It serves as messaging / content roadmap for the design team to think about how to represent
these conversations in an interface.
3. It serves as an internal communication tool to talk with project teams about whether we’re
speaking the right language, and what content or design solutions we need to generate to fulfill
on these conversations.
What we say to start the conversation
• We’ll help you figure out if you can afford a home and how your credit is involved.
• We’ll explain everything every step of the way, and we won’t disappear.
• You’ll know everything there is to know about rates, how we determine what you can qualify for,
and things to avoid.
Top questions they have, and our responses
Q: (Skeptical) What are your rates? This is the starting point of all conversations for me.
A: We have lots of rates for you to choose from. Give us a bit more information and we can tell you
which programs are best for you.
Q: (Overwhelmed) Show me how to do this. I want to know the process upfront, and how many days I
can expect it to take. I want a site that tracks the process, what's submitted and what's required. And
it needs to be up-to-date.
A: The lending process takes some time, but we're here to help you get through it as quickly as
possible. It's important that we get it right the first time, so we're not going to cut corners. Overall, you
can expect that it will take around 10 days to get a mortgage with us. This varies depending on how
complex your situation is. You can track the steps to get your mortgage. We'll be there every step of
the way to help you know what to do now and what's coming up next. We'll be sure to provide you

40. CONTENT WORKBOOKS
Keep yourself honest
• Stay organized, keep your conversation design
agnostic.
• Manage all of your content iterations and
promote collaboration.
Methodology derived from Steph Hay
Activity 7

42. No. Activity Used For
1 Know Feel Find Act Defining the experience
2 Journey Mapping w/ content Defining the experience
3 Identity Pillars Craft the message
4 Messaging Architecture Craft the message
5 “Talk Bubble” Design the narrative
6 Language Boards Design the narrative
7 Content Workbooks Design the narrative
WHAT WERE THOSE
ACTIVITIES AGAIN?

43. WHAT DO I DO
NOW?

44. SOME ADVICE…
BE BRAVE

45. ”
You don’t always need a
plan. Sometimes you just
need to breathe. Trust. Let
go. And see what
happens.
–Cheryl Strayed

46. THERE’S NO RIGHT WAY

47. YOU MIGHT FAIL ONCE
OR TWICE
(but that’s ok)

48. AND YOU’LL FIGURE
OUT WHAT WORKS
BEST…

50. LEARN MORE

51. THINGS TO READ
Content First User Experience | Steph Hay
Content First Design | Steph Hay
The Digital Crown: Winning at Content on the Web | Ahava Leibtag
Content Strategy at Work | Margot Bloomstein
Storymapping, A Macgyver Approach .... | Donna Lichaw & Lis Hubert
Nicely Said | Nicole Fenton & Kate Kiefer Lee
GatherContent’s Blog
Epic List of Content Strategy Resources | Jon Colman
MailChimp’s Style Guide

52. STAY IN TOUCH
Michaela Hackner
UX Content Strategy @ Capital One
michaela.hackner@capitalone.com
@kalabird