Shaping my role as a lead content designer
I became a lead content designer 2 years ago in Store Products. We design the applications that help colleagues in food stores complete everyday tasks, from reducing prices to returning unsold newspapers and magazines.
As it was my first time leading a team, I looked at how other lead content designers worked. I noticed that as well as line management and driving forward content design at Co-op, each lead content designer had to adapt their skills to meet the different needs of their teams.
In this blog, I share what my role looks like as a lead content designer, and how it’s been shaped by the area I work in.
Content design within our product team
In our product team, I work with an interaction designer and a user researcher, collaborating closely with product managers and engineers as part of a multidisciplinary team. Together we iterate designs based on what we learn from colleagues in stores.
As the applications are used in busy store environments, it’s important that the content is clear and concise. I write a lot of microcopy, which is small pieces of content such as button text, error messages, and guidance that helps colleagues complete tasks.
We only include information that colleagues need. User research helps us understand what’s essential, so we can make decisions based on evidence. From there, I define the content hierarchy, making sure the most important information is easy to see and understand on each screen.
Content design within Store Products
I lead a session every 2 weeks with the other content designers in Store Products, to make sure we’re using consistent language across our products.
It’s a time for us to:
- share and critique our work
- tackle problems together
- work on our content strategy
We’re currently exploring how we approach ‘time’ in our products. We usually use the 12-hour clock, but we’ve seen that the 24-hour clock is used a lot across legacy operational systems. We want to understand what option is best, or how we use both but in the right ways.
Design planning and prioritisation
We’ve learned that we work best when we have a clear design plan, with goals and deadlines. It helps us stay focused, motivated and on track.
I run a weekly planning meeting with our design team and our product manager, where we:
- break work down into individual design tasks
- review and amend the plan in line with product roadmaps
- discuss design work
I also facilitate prioritisation sessions, where we plot activities on a priority map or review roadmaps to understand the order of activities.
Team planning was new to me at first, but with time, trial and error, I’ve grown my skills and become more confident. Using the resources we have in the Experience Library, reading articles online, and learning from other lead designers helped me achieve this.
Collaborating with interaction design
One of my favourite things about my job is the people that I get to collaborate with.
I pair with Josh, our interaction designer, a lot. We’ll work together on:
- mapping out processes
- wireframing
- solving design problems
Helping with research
I like to get out on as many in-store research visits as I can, as it helps seeing colleagues’ initial reactions to designs and how they would be used in real life scenarios. You can spot where parts of the design are not working, or where colleagues fly through prototypes without a problem. It’s also nice to meet colleagues and get their ideas on how we could improve the designs.
I take notes either at the store or by watching the recordings afterwards. Our team works together to theme all the notes, before user research summarises the findings.
Wider community involvement
Within our content design and wider design community, I get involved by:
- helping other content designers with their crits
- updating content guidance in the Experience Library
- attending Experience Library working groups as a content design representative
- attending communities of practices (CoP)
- attending hack days outside of design
In October, I went to a hack event that the One Web team were running to test out their new component library. This gave me the opportunity to collaborate with other designers and engineers that I don’t work with every day. And it was fun, too!
What I’ve learned
Getting involved in wider community activities is great for learning and sharing skills. It can also help with creating consistent and accessible experiences for users, as by collaborating, you’re creating more opportunities to find out how to improve your content.
It’s ok to get involved with activities that aren’t part of your specialism. What’s most important is that you get the best outcome for both the product and the people. It’s been great for career growth too, as it’s helped me gain confidence and added to my skillset.
You don’t have to be an expert at something to try it either. For example, planning didn’t come naturally to me, but I wanted to learn so that our team could focus more. It’ll be something I continue to improve moving forward, aiming for progress over perfection.
I love the variety of my role and that Co-op supports that as part of our development. I want to keep refining the balance between product work, learning, and community activity, so I can continue growing across different areas.
There’s still more to learn, and I’m excited to see what comes next.
Blog by Sophie Newbery, Lead Content Designer for Store Products
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