The Farmer and the Cowhand Should Be Friends, or How UX and Content Can (and Should) Work Together)

The Farmer and the
Cowhand Should Be Friends.
How UX and Content
Can (and Should)
Work Together
Photo: Diane Sobolewski
Dylan Wilbanks
November 2017

Required Bona Fides
18 years working on the web
Stops at:
• University of Washington
• Apptio
• EnergySavvy
• HP
Founded Hêtre in 2017 to help
organizations with user
experience strategy
@dylanw #lavaconDylan Wilbanks

The entire talk summarized
on one pithy slide you can
tumble snap your face tweet:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit,
sed do eiusmod tempor
incididunt ut labore et dolore
magna aliqua.

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/11/wireframe-perfectionist-guide/

https://mypublicist.blogspot.com/2016/06/bet-awards-seat-check-2016.html

Is content supposed to be a
placeholder?

Design has become
independent of content

Just stick with me.

http://www.barberryhillfarm.com/2012/02/

"Louie Pierre, fullblood Indian farmer.” BIA, 1914
The Farmer.

Clem Albers, c. 1946 || Public Domain
The Cowhand.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/julieunplugged/2189972046/

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/roxbury/articles/oklahoma-roars-into-town-at-the-bickford-in-mo

The Farmer. The Cowhand.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/12140602074/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisjbathurst/28390055/
The Writer. The Designer.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/12140602074/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/curtisjbathurst/28390055/
The Writer. The Designer.
Where are we?

Life of a tech writer
• Document the product
• Rewrite every time
there’s a change
• Not get told there are
changes
• Rewrite
• Burn out
• Drink coffee
• Repeat
The Writer.

The Writer.
Life of a content strategist
• Define content
• Push for governance
• Fight silos
• Fight politics
• Fight some more
• Rewrite
• Burn out
• Drink coffee
• Repeat

“It’s just words.”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/soledadbrother/6254659091/

Life of a Designer
• Focus on users
• Fight for good design
• But:
• Engineering wants to ship
• Sales wants to sell
• Etc. etc. etc.
• “Just make it pretty!”
• Burn out
• Drink coffee
• Repeat The Designer.

“Make it pretty,
so long as it’s blue.”

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joopey/10331390786/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/joopey/10331390786/
Here’s my frustration.

Overdocumented?

Overdocumented?
UNDERDESIGNED.

User manuals, FAQs,
documentation sites, tutorial
videos: It’s often because of a
bad design process.

Why is this happening?

We don’t have time.

Tactical, transactional mindset

McDonald’s Design: fast,
cheap, not very good
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/14676406713/

https://www.flickr.com/photos/21148228@N08/14129393429/
Role oriented organizations

We often come in at
the end of the process
https://www.flickr.com/photos/scragz/132300597/

We share common pain

https://www.flickr.com/photos/quinnanya/8572353057/
We have common values.

“[content strategy is] Planning for
the creation, aggregation,
delivery, and useful governance of
useful, usable, and appropriate
content in an experience.”
Margot Bloomstein
(tweet @mbloomstein and say I said hi)

We care about story

“The Pixar Story Spine”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pixaranimationstudios.jpg

Once upon a time there was ______.
Every day, ______.
One day, ______.
And because of this, ______.
And because of this, ______.
Until finally ______.
And ever since that day, ______.
Brian McDonald, Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate

The User’s Journey
Donna Lichaw, 2016
http://donnalichaw.com

Common values, common stories

“Territory folks should stick together”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/theatrebhs/2696296105/

How can we stick together?
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wocintechchat/25900705292/

Communicate.

https://www.popchartlab.com/products/a-meticulous-metric-of-baseball-team-names-vol2

Some people juggle geese.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/litlnemo/2965988892/
Make connections.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/litlnemo/2965988892/
Build bridges.

“Always UX your UX”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/teemu08/7179209157/

Understand your audience and deliver
what they need in a way they can use it.

Start Now

Start Now
“Put some words here. Something about
onboarding? You’re a word person.”
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet,
consectetur adipiscing elit, sed
do eiusmod tempor incididunt

Start Now
New customer needs to start process
Friendly voice/tone
2 lines (~ 25 words)

Start Now
New customer needs to start process
Friendly voice/tone
2 lines (~ 25 words)
User + Goal
Requirements
Limitations

“The value that technical communicators
deliver is twofold: They make information
more useable and accessible to those who
need that information, and in doing so, they
advance the goals of the companies or
organizations that employ them.”
“Defining Technical Communication,” STC
https://www.stc.org/about-stc/defining-technical-communication/

Communication is everything
•Make connections and build bridges
•Understand how they think and talk and work
•Educate them on how you think and talk and
work
•Create a common vernacular for your work
•Always assume good intentions

Team up.
http://news3lv.com/news/local/gallery-indian-national-finals-rodeo-at-south-point#photo-15

Work to get to the start, together

Team up.
•Identify commonalities in goals, KPIs, OKRs
•Find the user pain and collaborate on solutions
•Build a business case for a unified design +
content strategy
•Always, always be proactive

Think strategically.

UX
Marketing Video
TechDocs

User Goal Design Content Video E-Mail

(who’s
our user?)
(what are we
trying to help
them
accomplish?)
(how the
design will
do to help
the user
succeed)
(how the
content team
will help the
user succeed)
(how the
video team
will do to
help the
user
succeed)
(how the e-
mail
cadence will
help the
user
succeed)

New
Customer
Understand
our new
offerings
Clearly
show the
three
options
Short, clear
explanations
of the
offerings
Three
videos, 30
secs apiece,
explaining
each of the
offerings
Use Content
with a focus
on calls to
action to
the site and
the videos

The crucial questions
1. Who is the user (human with the problem?)
2. What’s the user’s goal? (What does success look
like?)
3. What’s the problem?
4. How does the solution solve the problem for the
user?
5. How will we know it worked?

Show, don’t tell.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwkg/8638071231/

Controlled vocabularies

Demonstrate the value.
•Controlled terminology/vocabulary
•Refactor the design workflow to engage
content and docs in early, then show results
•Close the feedback loop with analytics that
cuts across design and content
•Show an optimistic way of working together

Show the path to the top.

This isn’t easy.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/cuboctahedron/22490565168/

What can we do together?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e5/Raised_fist.jpg

Russell Lee, Farm Security Administration, June 1939

US National Archives|| https://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/7136347785/

Abby LePage / Berkshire Theatre Group

We can re-unify design and content.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dsoltesz/3953814462/
Let’s be friends.

Thank you!
Twitter: @dylanw
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/dylanwilbanks/
Learn more about Hêtre at http://hetre.design
(it’s French for “beech tree.”)

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