Description
Content Designer
Telford
6 months
ASAP
Overview:
We're working with people across the business to make our business' services and information simpler, clearer and faster for citizens and businesses.
To do that, we're going to need good content designers who understand the web, technology and people.
All about the user:
Rule one for us is: "always start with user needs". We're aiming to create digital services that people prefer to use over their old-fashioned paper counterparts, and words play a big part in that. You'll represent users with the written word, so you need to be user-focussed and know how to write with a user, not a client/department in mind first and foremost.
All about you:
If you want to join us, you'll need to be able to:
- take complex language and processes and make them simple to understand
- work with people who don't understand good web usability
- be able to explain your decisions/edits clearly
All about us:
We work together. You'll be expected to work with the whole team, on all and any of our projects. Sometimes at a moment's notice. That means working with developers, designers, creatives, policy people, legal people, senior management - anyone we need to, to produce world-class online services.
You may be asked to do a number of different things on a number of projects; this could include any or all of these things:
Needs analysis:
You'll be working on needs analysis - taking existing content, identifying content gaps and overlaps etc. You'll also need to run workshops with cross-business colleagues to identify and agree content to be rationalised and archived, and mapping content to different formats and audiences.
Transition:
Transition is how we get content from an existing site to a new site. You'll need to:
- develop and manage relationships with GDS
- develop transition plans and attend planning meetings with contacts
- actively develop and apply content and format strategies
- be an advocate for the department to train and develop colleagues
Quality:
You'll be:
- scoping, commissioning, writing, editing and publishing digital content across all channels (web, mobile, social media)
- making sure customer journeys are the best they can be
- managing relationships with subject matter experts to make sure content is accurate
- accountable for delivering content assets that are accurate, timely, high-quality (based on insight and outputs of user testing, relevant to audience, easily understood, SEO optimised) and to the department's style
- accountable for choosing the best format for displaying information to the user - if we don't have one, we'll want you to suggest ideas or identify the gap
- making sure appropriate policy and legal checking within other parts of the business happens, and that content is published quickly and efficiently
- monitoring the performance of content and tools and work with the Product Manager and a multi-disciplinary team to understand user behaviours and feedback
- identifying ways to improve the content and to iteratively improve the product
- at ease working in an agile environment with rapidly changing deadlines, workloads and goals
Specialist skills required:
We need you to have:
- extensive experience of writing for the web, with proven ability of creating content that is accessible and usable
- exceptional skills in convincing people that user needs and a usable approach is the only way to present information
- proven experience in using metrics and user feedback to define/refine content
- proven experience of working within a web application development environment, proficient in writing Markdown, picture sourcing and editing
- experience in choosing the best format for displaying information to the user
- experience in working with content publishing systems
Competencies required:
Leading and team working
- Building on the inter-dependencies and relationships between teams to create a common purpose
- Clarifying and communicating team objectives, bringing a broader perspective to a team so that it can focus on different delivery approaches
- Co-ordinating and monitoring team performance, utilising team diversity to maximise effectiveness
Analysing evidence and thinking strategically
- Identifying hidden or emerging issues and proposing decisive strategic action
- Probing evidence to identify strategic trends and links
- Analysing evidence from diverse sources to generate robust solutions and make timely decisions
Focusing on customers and stakeholders
- Investing time to understand customer and stakeholder expectations and priorities, developing services to meet those needs, including when they change
- Anticipating and managing problems, bringing issues and conflict into the open and taking pre-emptive action
- Identifying and introducing improved services to deliver customer and stakeholder requirements
Suitable candidates should submit their CV in the first instance.