Episode web page: https://tinyurl.com/2p9rbkfu ----------------------- Rate Insights Unlocked and write a review If you appreciate Insights Unlocked, please give it a rating and a review. Visit Apple Podcasts, pull up the Insights Unlocked show page and scroll to the bottom of the screen. Below the trailers, you'll find Ratings and Reviews. Click on a star rating. Scroll down past the highlighted review and click on "Write a Review." You'll make my day. ----------------------- In this week’s Insights Unlocked, we look back at three past episodes discussing the importance of smart content—that strategically crafted, user-focused content that adapts to audience needs, enhances customer experience, and drives engagement through clarity and relevance. Industry experts Bobbie Wood, Natalie Dunbar, and Kelly Erickson share insights on the impact of well-crafted content, the power of user testing, and the evolving role of AI in UX writing. Whether you’re in marketing, CX, or UX, you’ll gain valuable takeaways on how content strategy can elevate your brand and improve the way customers interact with your products and services. Key Topics & Takeaways: 1. The Power of Content in Customer Experience Successful companies prioritize clear, user-friendly content to drive engagement and loyalty. Content strategy isn’t just about writing—it’s about delivering the right message at the right time in the right format. Microcopy, such as button text and CTAs, can make or break user engagement. 2. The Importance of Content Testing & User Research A/B testing and usability studies are essential to understand how users interact with content. Testing must go beyond isolated elements—content should be evaluated across the entire user journey to ensure consistency. Observing user reactions, especially when they stop interacting, can reveal pain points that need to be addressed. 3. Balancing Brand Consistency with Personalization A strong brand voice ensures content remains consistent across channels while still adapting to different user needs. Marketers and UX teams should define voice and tone guidelines that allow flexibility for various contexts. The right balance between structured brand messaging and personalized user interactions enhances engagement. 4. AI’s Growing Role in Content Creation AI tools can assist with content creation, but they lack the human empathy, nuance, and contextual understanding needed for great UX writing. The future of AI in UX writing is still evolving, and ethical concerns around AI-generated content must be considered. While AI can optimize workflows, human oversight remains crucial in crafting meaningful and relatable content. 5. Why Content Strategy Should Start Early in Projects Content strategists should be involved from the very beginning of product and experience design. Early collaboration ensures content aligns with user expectations, business goals, and overall design strategy. Mapping out content needs before development reduces the risk of last-minute changes and improves efficiency. Featured Guests: 🔹 Bobbie Wood on LinkedIn 🔹 Natalie Dunbar on LinkedIn 🔹 Kelly Erickson on LinkedIn
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Welcome back to the Insights Unlocked podcast. In this episode, we're exploring how great content drives better customer experiences, boost engagement, and strengthens brand loyalty. Industry experts Bobby Wood, Natalie Dunbar, and Kelly Erickson share insights on content strategy, testing, and the role of AI in crafting clear, impactful messaging.
Whether you're in marketing, CX or UX, you'll take away practical tips to connect with your audience and improve their journey. Enjoy the show.
Welcome to Insights Unlocked, an original podcast from User Testing, where we bring you candid conversations and stories with the thinkers, doers, and builders behind some of the most successful digital products and experiences in the world, from concept to execution.
What keeps me up at night? I think the speed and rate of change of technology is crazy. So, yeah, I think we're in a period of hyper growth on the technology side. And that's something that is sort of going to manifest over the next five or 10 years in interesting ways, I think.
Chapter 2: How does smart content enhance customer experience?
Do you think most companies inherently understand the value of having good content, good writing, and, you know, vetting design with actual humans?
I do. The smart ones and the successful ones, at least, right? You ignore your customer and your research at your own peril. And these days, you know, UX has very much proven its return on investment. Like the value is very clear. Companies who listen to customers and respond to customers and build for customers to solve problems are really the ones that are succeeding.
Chapter 3: What makes a great UX content strategist?
So speaking of content designers and content writers, when employees or employers or companies, teams looking to hire somebody as a content strategist, what are they typically looking for? Like what makes a good UX content strategist or writer?
So an interesting thing that is actually hard to teach, speaking of online learning and teaching, it's very hard to teach what UX writers are absolutely best at. And that is both looking at content and narrative on a macro level. So sort of looking at storytelling and cohesiveness between products or between devices or interaction modes.
And then the other side of the coin for UX writing is zooming all the way into specific word choice. and little tiny microcopy. So, you know, you've got this marriage of broad content strategy with tiny structured word choice and essential communication. So I love that part of it.
Yeah. Yeah.
Macro and micro.
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Chapter 4: How is microcopy tested for effectiveness?
I love that. It's like a really nice visualization to thinking sort of like big, thinking big picture, like you said, across channels or experiences or products and then down into... The tiny little word choices that seem tiny, but actually are really- Have huge impact, right? Exactly. Yeah.
I remember the notion of microcopy and even testing different calls to action, for example, to see which one is actually going to drive more engagement. We actually had customers that have, before they've actually gone live with a design, they before they AB test, like in some cases they'll have two or three options that they'll put out. The design will be exactly the same.
The interaction is exactly the same. The only thing that's different is the word that they use on the button. Yes. And what they do is they put like eight versions of it through user testing or at least get initial feedback from people to say, okay, which ones are people gravitating towards the most or which ones are resonating the most?
So when we do push them out to A, B, that these are the best two or three out of the...
Chapter 5: Why is continuous content testing important?
eight right teen that we're thinking of because there's no no shortage of options yeah and the interesting thing is that um testing is always compelling and interesting and fun but it can't stop there right so once your user clicks through on that you know the button that that created them the highest level of engagement
did that button also keep the user moving forward through the next three screens, right? So like that one isolated interaction, you might be like, yes, we have a winner. We know the words, the key words, but it's really, the testing has to continue through the whole experience so that you really understand the flow and the success of the task completion.
What's been unique about content design compared to other design disciplines in your perspective? Can you share an example from your industry that illustrates the differences between your ways of working as a content designer and those of other forms of design?
For sure. I mean, when it comes to content design, we really think about the words. To borrow an example from Candy Williams, her talk at Config a few years ago, you strip away the words, you don't really have much left in the design. Um, so it's really focusing on those words and not just like what the words are themselves. Like that's a big part of it. We want to use the right words.
We want to speak to people in a way that they understand is intuitive. And I mean, just sounds human, just not like a robot or normal people right behind these screens. But, um, that those words also appear in a way that makes sense, right?
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Chapter 6: How does content design differ from other design disciplines?
It's a fine balance between, you know, wanting to give someone all the information in a specific moment so they know exactly what to do next and where they're going and like things are going to be okay to also just like what do they actually need to know to take that next step to accomplish the task and presenting it in a way that make sense, is clear.
You know, another, I'm going to quote some other people here, but like Brené Brown, clear is kind. So like, how do we make it as clear as possible so that it's as kind and easy for the user as possible?
Content strategy is a term that can be very broad and you're focusing on the UX part of that.
I mean, I'm a purist, as you probably are well aware, there's content design, there's UX writing, there's content marketing strategy. When we talk about content strategy from a UX point of view, we're talking about getting the right content to the right people in the right format at the right time.
We're always looking to be joined, as I like to say, joined at the hip with a UX designer and researcher in everything that we do, because we want to make sure that not only what we create resonates with users, but that it's actually useful. We're not always talking about the actual words that appear within a digital experience. We're sometimes not even writing.
In my current role, I do a fair amount of UX writing, but I've had roles as a content strategy lead where I didn't do any writing at all. There was a separate team that we would hand off to. We're talking about what... thing or format do we need for the content to be expressed in?
And I should say as an aside by content, again, not just words, but what visual elements, infographic or video, or should we have a long block of text or should it be a bulleted list? All those kinds of things that We learn from partnering with research and partnering with visual design and understanding what it is that the user is looking for in order to complete a task.
Also, elements like wayfinding, which kind of overlap with the information architecture, but we're also very concerned in how do we label things? What are the top tasks that people are looking to complete when they come to a site, when they use an app?
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Chapter 7: What role does AI play in content creation?
If I'm a writer and I want to get something out into the world, whether it's through my company's website or maybe some other way that I'm communicating, how do you, I guess for lack of a better word, how do you user test it?
How do you test it? Oh my gosh. So that's a hard question. So there are comprehension tests like closed testing, C-L-O-Z-E. And I know, of course, you know all about this, Janelle, because you're at user testing. But, you know, there are comprehension tests that you can use. And even basic usability testing is absolutely key.
One of the things I always teach when I'm talking about usability testing is that when your user stops talking, that's when you start listening. So when that user has stopped talking, they've probably got that, you know, the hamster wheel is turning in their head and they're trying to figure out what the heck they're reading, they're trying to process.
And so to understand, you know, whether or not your words are simple enough, your sentences are short enough. your instructions are clear and almost obvious, right? We want them to be so obvious that the user almost doesn't remember reading them. So if the user stops and you've hit a wall of silence, that's when to ask the user, okay, what's going on now? Something's happening.
You're not understanding. Your expectation didn't match what happened. You're not sure what your next right action should be.
You've seen all kinds of content and experiences. So how do you think about what needs to be tested first? And what are the factors that really stand out to you in that decision process?
Yeah. Well, it depends. It depends what we know about our users. It depends what information that we already have. There's actually a project that I picked up right away in my job at Warner here. You know, it's been nine days, but already I was kind of picked one up and it was nice because it's just a way to get into the product. But yeah. you know, I was asking a lot of questions.
I was trying to figure out what's the best way to like, even just write this, like the first, it wasn't the headline of the page, but it was like the first header of a section. And it's like, okay, well, what's the right language here? So I was like, what do I know about my users? What information do we already have? What have we already tested?
And of course I'm coming into this in the middle of it versus the start. But all these questions are still really paramount when you're entering any project you know out of the phase. Like, what do you already know? And once you identify what you already know, that's when you can kind of prioritize from there what sort of testing might work best.
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Chapter 8: How should content strategy be integrated into project planning?
But if, like in the example of the checkout test that I mentioned earlier, the order form where it's like, I don't really know what is the best motivating message here. We got to take that and ask first. Kind of with that in mind, with that prioritization in mind, I mean, a lot of times as content designers, we just get a design and it's like, okay, add the words.
But I have found it's moments when we're able to really test the messaging first, no matter what that looks like. that that has a big influence on the design and can really shape what that flow might look like. When are we surfacing a message? What does that message look like? And how does that link to a next step?
So yeah, the prioritization just depends on the state of the project and what you know about your users and where you can go next.
insert user research into your process? I'm curious. I have been lucky.
I've worn that hat before. I've kind of come full circle. I started as a digital content writer. I was a product manager. I was a user researcher and I came right back around to content. I think these days it's so wonderful that we can work in tools that help us create early prototypes.
And we can use actual content and we can see if we label this this way, if we have this information as a how to, does it make sense for people? And we can be right there in lockstep with research, observing that. the research experience, but also even in creating the scripts for the research that's going to be done.
A lot of times I've been in situations in the past where we're being more prescriptive or some of our partners are being more prescriptive about what they want in a prototype. And we actually will say, well, let's strip it back. And in some cases, let's ask the user what they would call this thing. Let's ask the user, how would you search for something? Where do you think this thing should live?
And we'll be part of that structuring that research. And then also, too, making sure that once the research readout is done, that anything that touches content, that we're making those changes before the experience is fully baked and ready to be launched.
Can you kind of summarize for listeners your thoughts on how AI will impact UX writing? Wow.
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