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Content-First

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What is Content-First?

The content-first approach puts content ahead of design elements and aesthetics to create user-friendly products with content that is easy to find, read and understand.

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    Now, when you do journey maps or you create personas, and when you think about content strategy or improving your content and making it more useful, more desirable for your users, it's important that you get that guidance from user research and specifically doing field studies, sitting down with users, going to their homes;

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    if it's B2B, going to their office place, sitting beside them. I once was doing an internal intranet study for a big hospital. I would go from desk to desk talking to different users. When I would come up with an artifact, so when I would discover an artifact, in one case it was a list of telephone numbers of – you know – frequent people to call; you really need to dig deeper and discover *all the opportunities that exist*. And I ended up carrying a stack of papers.

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    And one of the users said, "You know, it would be really nice if I had a list of frequent people to call..." And I pulled it out for my stack of papers and said, "Oh, you mean something like this?" And she went, "Yeah. That's exactly right!" I'll tell you another story from a store – it's like a country store. So, on the West coast of the United States there are a new generation of farmers. The focus of this study was to discover what the experience was for younger, for Millennial farmers,

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    and in particular what content they might need to go along with an e-commerce experience. So, we went out to farms and interviewed people – actually we recruited through, we joined groups on Facebook and we could actually see from the Facebook groups that people were recommending our client's brand and other brands, and they were asking questions like "Where can I sell chicken eggs?" because when you start farming at home, out in the countryside, like chickens are a popular one, goats are the other one; you start developing the byproducts of those of those things.

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    So, we talked to a lawyer – she's a lawyer by day, when she goes into Seattle, the nearest biggest city, she takes her Nubian goats and sells them to people that buy the goats. It's really interesting. Then the other thing she made was soap with the lard she was making with the extra fat that she was getting from her pigs. She was making her own soap and then selling her own soap as  kind of a cottage industry. So, we could see this – we heard from the users that kind of stuff; we saw them doing this online as well.

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    So, we had a kind of the social side of it, and Facebook groups are extremely important for certain communities like this. They also act as a way to sell products if you have excess products. But one thing we found out is the users said they want to be able to do this at the stores as well. They said they like the physical events, the social events that stores put on. So, you know, come to the store – a little music, a little bit of food: community essentially. They really liked that, but they wanted more of them. We also discovered that a lot of women

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    were making the buying decisions. One of our personas was the manager of the farm. A lot of these people have just learned how to do farming off of YouTube; they call it the University of YouTube. So, that small content about how to make your own sauerkraut, how to raise goats, how to make a fence that is deer-proof so the deer don't come and eat your vegetables. All these kinds of things they rely on YouTube, so that was a content discovery source for us. We realized as well that these women were one of the primary personas; they kept coming up.

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    The irony here was the CEO of the company was actually a woman, but they didn't tell us to interview women – they didn't tell us anything about the gender side of it. We went and did some research just because it was one of our findings and it turns out that in Oregon, anyway, 50% of new farmers are women. This is a huge cultural shift from the 1950s, '60s, where it was like 85 to 90% men.

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    This is an inclusion and a bias story of discovering bias. Women were complaining that the jeans were designed for men. Women said that after going on a horse for like 20 minutes, the jeans would rip. Then the crotch would just rip out, so they're throwing away, wasting money on clothes that were not designed for a  woman's body, for her physical needs as well as social and other in these. In other words, they were made cute, so little tiny pockets that you can't put anything in – no tools, no phone.

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    Whereas the men's clothing had that functionality. And there's a bias on clothing, in particular work clothing, and there are actually brands that cater specifically to women that understand this, and there are two  or three brands. But it's still very niche; it's very like edge case. Yet up to 50%, in California, close to 35 to 40% of farmers are women now. And these are government statistics,  and it matched kind of our study.

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    So, it was a finding that we stumbled upon by making sure that we interviewed the right users, that we listened to – we didn't just assume that farmers were men. We kept an open mind when we created the study. The content ideas that poured out of this  gave us all the types of things that users were saying they needed, and we were able to tell our client to have their social media team and make the kind of content that would work, that would resonate emotionally with the kind of problems that users were trying to solve, in addition to the e-commerce.

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    And actually when that site launched after six months, (there was) a 10x increase in sales from that site. So, they did something right, and a lot of it had to do with just doing one of these very open baseline professional field studies that can give you all the content and desirability insights that you need to make the right decisions.

While content-first prioritizes content, it doesn't necessarily mean design is disregarded. On the contrary, the content-first strategy recognizes that design and content must work together seamlessly to create an effective website or app. It aims to ensure that your product's design approach aligns with its content and, thus, maximizes the impact of both. There are other approaches too, such as task-oriented design which focuses on task-completion.

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

Design considerations are still essential in the content-first design approach but are addressed from a user-centered perspective. With a focus on the user's needs and preferences, designers can create products that look good and enhance the user's experience. This means it is necessary to create page layouts and visual elements that complement the content and help users navigate the site quickly.

Table of contents
  1. What is Content-First?
  2. Advantages of the Content-First Approach for Digital Products
  3. How to Implement a Content-First Approach in Your Design Process
  4. Best Practices and Considerations for Using the Content-First Approach
    1. Use Clear, Concise Language
    2. Prioritize Your Content
    3. Consider Localization
    4. Test Your Content Strategy
    5. Collaborate with Stakeholders
  5. Learn More about Content-First

Advantages of the Content-First Approach for Digital Products

If you choose to adopt this strategy, it's important that you think about two key elements that will help you prioritize content over design:

  • Improves User Experience: When designers prioritize content, they improve the quality of the experience since users visit websites or use apps to find relevant information.

  • Promotes Content-Informed Design Decisions: When content is available, designers can design the experience accordingly. For example, they can choose tone, voice, language and message that complement and enhance the content. Effective UX writing is essential for this.

How to Implement a Content-First Approach in Your Design Process

To start a project with the content-first approach, it's essential to understand what you want to achieve with your website. To establish a strong foundation:

  1. Consider the purpose of your website or app (the “why”). Determine what you would like to communicate and how your content will help you achieve those goals. This step is crucial because when you prioritize content over design, the focus is on the effective delivery of the message.

  2. Think about the story you want to tell (the “what”). Consider how your content will convey a narrative that aligns with your brand's values and resonates with your audience. This will also help you create a product that engages users.

  3. Identify the actions you want users to take on your website or app (the “how”). Whether it's to make a purchase, fill out a form, or contact you directly, try understanding the expected user behavior from the outset.

A content-first approach in web or app design is simple, but requires some adjustments to your design process. Here are some steps you can take when adopting this method:

  1. Conduct a Content Audit: Start by auditing your website's existing content. Identify which pages and sections of the site are most important and analyze how the current content performs.

  2. Conduct Competitive Analysis: Investigate what your competition is doing regarding content; for example, what message do they communicate? What are the key features of their website or app? How do they use visual design to communicate brand values? Also, make a list of positive and negative aspects.

  3. Conduct User Research: While competitive analysis is good, you must not copy their mistakes! Moreover, your users may have different needs than your competitors. Do your field research and conduct interviews to understand your users better.

  4. Create a Site Map or a User Flow: A site map is a visual representation of all the pages on a site, and a user flow documents the steps users take to accomplish their tasks on an app. Both are valuable tools to identify what type of content your users prefer and help you check where the content would have more impact.

  5. Create a Content Inventory Document: This list features all the content on your website, such as text, images or documents. It helps you identify gaps in content and avoid duplicates or unnecessary items.

  6. Use Proto-Content to Avoid Unnecessary Design Iterations: Using proto-content, or low-fidelity content, instead of generic placeholder text like "Lorem Ipsum," is especially helpful when creating designs for localized content since it enables designers to understand how the design will look and feel with real content in different scenarios and languages.

  7. Create a Limited Number of Layouts: Standardizing formats for groups of pages can improve usability since consistency informs users about what to expect next, so ask yourself: how many pages should follow the same format? For large websites, experts recommend using 5–7 templates, fewer than that for smaller products. To help you visualize the layouts, create sketches of them.

Best Practices and Considerations for Using the Content-First Approach

© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0

The content-first approach is a great way to create effective websites and apps that deliver the message clearly and concisely. Here are some best practices and considerations to keep in mind when using this approach:

Use Clear, Concise Language

One of the main goals of the content-first approach is to make it easy for users to find and understand your content. To achieve this goal, you should use clear, concise, easy-to-read and easy-to-understand language. Avoid jargon or technical terms that may confuse your audience.

Prioritize Your Content

During your content creation process, make a note to prioritize your content based on its importance. This means placing the most critical information at the top of the page, so users can quickly find what they need. Use headings, subheadings, and bullet points to break up large blocks of text and make it easier for users to scan.

Consider Localization

If you're creating a website for a global audience, consider localization when developing your content strategy. This means translating your content into multiple languages and adapting it for different cultures. Remember that certain words or images may have different meanings in other parts of the world.

Test Your Content Strategy

Before launching your website or app, test your content strategy with real users to see how they interact. Conduct user testing sessions where participants perform tasks on your site while you observe their behavior. This will help you identify any issues with navigation or usability.

Collaborate with Stakeholders

Collaboration is key when using the content-first approach. Involve stakeholders from different departments in the design process, including marketing, sales, customer service and IT. This will help ensure that everyone's needs are being met and that the final product is effective.

Learn More about Content-First

Explore the benefits of using proto-content to improve your UX design.

Here's an overview of the content audit process, which involves analyzing and evaluating existing content on a website or app.

This article discusses the importance of creating a content inventory document or a comprehensive list of all the content on a website or app.

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Literature on Content-First

Here's the entire UX literature on Content-First by the Interaction Design Foundation, collated in one place:

Learn more about Content-First

Take a deep dive into Content-First with our course Mobile UX Strategy: How to Build Successful Products .

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Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF. (2023, May 26). What is Content-First?. Interaction Design Foundation - IxDF.