What is Content Design in R&D
Content design collaborates with our UX and product teams to advocate for and deliver a quality user experience to our customers through the written word or other multi-media options available to us.
Practically speaking, we author clear, concise copy for product user interfaces, system emails, and the knowledge base. We base decisions on customer research and feedback, industry best practices, and any relevant data available to us.
We are also here to serve our peers working in departments or teams as we can. Feel free to reach out to our team for copy editing, content strategy, information management best practices, or other content-related advice.
How to Reach Us
We encourage co-workers to let our team know when content requires revision or when you need other content assistance. Just enter a ticket to the Ghostwriters board in JIRA. If you don't have access to JIRA, you may contact us on Slack at #acst_content_community or #ux-content. Our team routinely reviews and prioritizes requests.
ACS Help Center
Customers and employees access the most up-to-date product knowledge at https://help.acst.com/en. This location serves as a central hub where ministry partners and employees can dynamically search, browse, retrieve, print, or share a variety of information and media types.
Good product documentation is a strategic advantage. Relevant information helps teams and customers make more informed decisions: Customer Service can resolve problems faster, Marketing and Training can produce more useful content, Sales can close deals faster, and so forth. Other benefits are...
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Call deflection and improved productivity for employees and customers. Because the knowledge base centralizes all product information into a searchable and browsable format, customers and employees do not have to scroll through email, chat or Slack messages, various websites, or other locations to answer questions.
Knowledge preservation. As subject matter experts leave or transfer out of the company, product knowledge is preserved in the knowledge base and frequently serves as the initial source of product training for new employees.
Consistency in communication. Product content originates in R&D where outcomes are aligned to business goals, developed based on customer/market research, and delivered according to product market positioning. A successful knowledge base is routinely audited and updated so that it serves as a reliable source of truth.
User Interface Writing
"UX writing is the art of writing copy to aid the user experience. It's the process of planning and writing all the text that features on a digital product interface."1
Error messages when something goes wrong
- Text on buttons, fields, and menus
- Chat bot messages
- Success messages
- In product prompts or paths
- Emails sent from the software to an end user1
When writing UX copy, we follow the design principles of clarity, efficiency, cohesion, simplicity, and beauty.
Documentation & Tools
R&D's content team has built a comprehensive warehouse of reusable content components, and variables. These components or "chunks" allow our team to efficiently author, architect, and maintain up-to-date, high quality product documentation across an extensive product line.
The enterprise strategies and tools we use position the company's product content for efficient, cost-efficient language translation should the need arise. Content built this way can be combined with data points and syndicated or digitized to a wide variety of channels1 for the purpose of delivering personalized content on-demand. 2
Quick Reference Links, Tools, and Shared Google Drives are available on the UX & Content Google site.
- Content Team Learning & Training is also available on the UX & Content Google site.