Re-sharing my favourite news story of all time on it's fifth anniversary. www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-e...
Dan
@dandoescontent.bsky.social
Content design, systems & structure. // Advocate of a lighter, more efficient & more accessible internet.
Questions I like to ask during content design job interviews, a thread...
Every Civil Service hiring panel: "Give me an example of how you can deliver at pace." Also every Civil Service hiring panel: "Our recruitment process takes nine months."
Been saying this for years. Most "content problems" are actually information architecture, system or governance problems.
Llibertat UK (Katrina)@llibertatuk.bsky.social · 6mo agoWant more awareness of or engagement with your products or services? Your problem isn't content, it's your infrastructure - weak rules, governance, structures. Find out why AI makes that problem bigger and what you can do about it from Llibertat CEO Padma Gillen: www.linkedin.com/posts/padma-...
Oh, this is good. 👌
Martin Jordan@martinjordan.com · 8mo agoWho got taxpayers’ money? The Government of Cyprus is doing an excellent job at increasing transparency for service design and development. For the 28 services that are compliant with their #ServiceStandard so far, you can see who made them – PWC, EY, in-house: dsf.dmrid.gov.cy/service-stan...
Funny that orgs always have time and money for dozens of data protection roles and hours of mandatory training for everyone, but never for accessibility roles and training. 🤷♂️ Orgs and their employees have equal legal compliance obligations to both. Yet accessibility is never resourced.
Jukesie@jukes.ie · 9mo agoGiven the amount of mandatory training on GDPR I've done over the last few years as I've bounced around roles you'd think I'd be an expert by now 😆
Interesting. And very good. Given the evolving digital landscape, it's more important than ever to move beyond the concept of "pages" and start structurally modelling *things* in your operating domain.
Joe Lanman@joelanman.com · 9mo agoThis is excellent work insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2026/01/20/t...
If your anticipated users only get involved at the pixel stage, it is already too late
Oft-repeated hypothesis: 90% - maybe a little less, but not much less - of a website’s usability is determined by the shape of its data model. Therefore, the type of people who might want to use / be forced to use your website should be involved in the design of its data model
"Orgs need a common taxonomy for describing services, including products, capabilities, outcomes and how each relates to the other. If teams aren’t clear on the language they are using to describe the same things, they can talk at cross purposes..." Yes! And yes again.
Ben Holliday@benholliday.com · 11mo ago⭐ New blog: I've been doing some writing about Service Design recently... In this post, I explain how importance of the shift from product to a "service mindset" … Thanks to Mica Moore (not on BSky) who contributed to this and provided feedback. benholliday.com/2025/11/18/f... #ServiceDesign
"Sometimes when we join an organisation we find that, beyond hiring you, it has made absolutely no other changes to allow you to actually do the work it expects you to do." Literally 90% of my career, tbh. 😆😭
The School of Good Services@theschoolofgood.bsky.social · 11mo agoWe've written about the 5 things that are needed in any scenario to create an organisation that can design and deliver services well This is for all the people stepping into leading service design, whether it's in their title or not. good.services/writing/comm...
Another year has passed with neither a content or interaction designer coming within touching distance of HMRC's online self-assessment service. 😔
95% of orgs are not prepared for (or even aware of) the future web landscape. They're still thinking of, and creating, websites like it's 2005. Despite the very obvious fact that "websites" will become less and less of a thing. Browsers without address bars? They're already here.
Llibertat UK (Katrina)@llibertatuk.bsky.social · 11mo agoAI browsers are shifting mental models for search from "where do I go?" to "what do I want?". So does that mean UX might be building AI features backwards? How might user-centred and ethical design help meet human needs (safely) in the intent-driven search era? uxdesign.cc/what-perplex...
Is Digital ID the same as GOV.UK One Login? Which is both a cross-service system and a native phone app. Is it the same as the "GOV.UK ID Check" app? Which itself is neither of the "GOV.UK One Login", "GOV.UK" or "UKVI ID Document Check" apps. Is it Government Gateway? Is it your NI number? 🤷♂️😵💫
I enjoy pointing out to SEO folk that the introduction of the alt attribute (HTML 1.2, June 1993) predates the introduction of the first modern search engine (JumpStation, December 1993). It was always designed and intended as an accessibility feature.
Accessibility Awareness@a11yawareness.bsky.social · last yr.Do not cram alt text with keywords just to improve search engine optimization. This will hinder alt text’s true purpose: improving accessibility. Focus on describing the photo's content. Search engine optimization should not be the goal for writing good alt text.
This is why a strong content model and governance are vital. What are the *things* your users care about? How do you represent and standardise them? What is a service? What is guidance? Why might you create a website for one and not another? Without that model, you slide into chaos like this.
Alex Torrance@alextorrance.co.uk · last yr.Should departments only ever publish content on GOV.UK? What happens when the content they want to publish isn't guidance and doesn't fit the GOV.UK proposition? What should GDS's position be on departments creating their own websites? Read my blog post about it www.tpximpact.com/knowledge-hu...
Are we still giving candidates the "rewrite this source material" task during content design interviews? This has been a red flag for a long time. Even more so in 2025.
But to add re evolving, #ContentDesign is supposed to be a disruptor, it’s meant to question internal processes, connect silos, create change in an org. Orgs don’t like change. And they do like hierarchy. So it’s very hard for what’s often a lone CD to do much more than a good web editor would…
Do you think that the discipline of content design has evolved beyond it's formative roots? Do you think it is evolving at the required rate? Faster or slower than other UX disciplines?
"But we rely on search traffic! What will we do if people don't click our links?!" Been warning all my employers for the past decade that this was coming, and how to prepare for it. None of them wanted to listen. Sigh. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Google launches new 'AI mode' search feature in UK
The new tool marks a significant change for the search giant but raises questions for advertisers.
bbc.co.uk
The Content Management industry is doomed to chase flash in the pan feature trends until it recognizes the fact that its job isn’t producing artifacts, but facilitating communication. Assessing the effectiveness of a message is difficult, so we’re buried in terrible proxy metrics.
Why do I need a GOV.UK app? I interact with government a handful of times a year, at the very most. Am I not the intended audience? Confused.
No amount of copy editing will save you if your content ecosystem is structurally broken.
Are you "paying attention to detail" or are you "bikeshedding the things that are easy to change to avoid dealing with your fundamentally flawed UX"
This is an issue if your organisation's business model and KPIs are based on vanity metrics, rather than helping people. And it's only going to get more pronounced. pressgazette.co.uk/publishers/d...
Google AI Overviews leads to dramatic reduction in clickthroughs for Mail Online
Mail Online is seeing up to 56% lower clickthrough rate when Google AI Overviews appear for one of its keywords.
pressgazette.co.uk
All of this. But also, getting your org to thrive in an AI-centric future-web landscape, requires that more than just your content team understand this stuff. There are still far, far too many people in positions of "leadership" and power who don't know what they don't know.
Josh Tong@joshtong.bsky.social · last yr.My best guesses about what AI will mean for content strategists in the next few years. – Content strategy, IA, and CX skills will become even more important. But some industries will have to learn that the hard way. – Dedicated writing roles will become less common. (1/x)