Ben Holliday

Content design for service design

Some thoughts about content formats and content ownership.

As teams working on digital by default services we don’t just design content for GOV.UK.

At Digital DWP we’ve put together a team of talented content designers to be responsible for all the content in a service. They make sure appropriate content is shown to users at the right place and in the best format.

Don’t own the letter. Own the message

Content never belongs to a format.

You don’t design content ​for formats. You ​use formats to deliver content you’ve designed.

For example:

It’s a statement on paper. Not a paper statement.

If there is a genuine user need for information, and paper didn’t exist, there would still be content to design.

It’s a statement on the internet. Not a digital statement.

If there’s a genuine user need for information, and the internet didn’t exist, there would still be content to design.

There will always be new formats. There will always be new things to communicate.

The important thing is to own the message. Not the letter, or the website.

This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 18 years. You can follow all of my posts by subscribing to this RSS feed. You can also find me on Bluesky, less frequently now on X (formally Twitter), and on LinkedIn.