01 · The premise
“Content design isn't about words. It's about meeting user needs.”
Sarah Winters - who brought the craft out of GOV.UK and gave it a name
Most content problems aren't writing problems - they're decision problems. What deserves to exist? What order does it go in? What gets cut? Content designers answer with analytics, search logs, support tickets and user research and only then do they write. Everyone else writes first and hopes for the best.
If nobody needs it, the most beautiful sentence in the world is still waste.
02 · The difference
Not copywriting. Not even close.
Copywriting earns attention; content design removes effort. Both are crafts - and they solve opposite problems. Confusing them is how websites end up beautiful and unusable.
03 · The process
It's a loop, not a line.
Five phases that feed each other. “Done” is a place you visit, not one you keep - the last phase always sends work back to the first.
01 Discover
01 / 05Mine the raw material: analytics, search terms, support tickets, interviews. You’re looking for what people actually ask for - ideally in the exact words they use.
Select a phase - or just keep scrolling. The loop is the point.
04 · The unit of work
Start with one honest sentence.
Every piece of content should trace back to a user need. Write it in this shape - then go and check that it's actually true. Click the blanks to cycle through them.
As a , I need , so that .
64 combinations are possible - research is how you learn which ones are real. Everything else is an expensive guess.
05 · The craft
The whole job, in one pass.
This is content design in miniature: take what you were handed, find the point buried inside it and get out of its way.
It has been observed that in instances where adverse meteorological conditions prevail, 1utilisation of the pavement 2may give rise to 3circumstances of elevated risk.4
“The pavement is icy. Use the underpass.”
25 words → 7. Same warning, 72% lighter - and now it tells you what to actually do.
06 · The toolkit
Six rules that do most of the work.
None of these are about style. They're all about respecting a person who is distracted, in a hurry and on a phone.
Front-load everything
The answer goes in the first five words. Visitors decide in seconds whether a page is for them.
“Refunds take 14 days - here's why.” → not: “Some information about refunds:”
One idea per paragraph
If a paragraph needs “and also”, it's two paragraphs wearing a trench coat. Split it.
Prefer verbs to nouns
“Decide”, not “make a decision”. “Use”, not “the utilisation of”. Verbosity is where clarity hides.
Headings must work alone
People scan headings and skip everything else. Read only your headings - if the story doesn't hold, fix them first.
Write the way people talk
“Help” beats “assistance”. “Buy” beats “purchase”. Search logs will tell you the user's words - the org chart's aren't in there.
Delete the warm-up
Cut your first paragraph. If the page still makes sense - and it usually does - leave it cut.
07 · The proof
Plain language is measurable.
Paste anything below - or load the two versions from section 05 - and watch where they land on the gauge.
target zone · reading ease 60–75
type or paste something to measure it
- 0words
- 0sentences
- 0avg words / sentence
- 0%long words
Flesch Reading Ease scores 0–100; higher is easier. A general audience is comfortable around 60–75. Dense corporate copy usually scores in the 20s and 30s - roughly academic-journal territory.
08 · The evidence
And the numbers agree.
of visitors scan pages instead of reading them word by word.
Nielsen Norman Group - eye-tracking studies, 1997–2010