Agnieszka Murdoch
Learning designer at the Government Digital Service. Recent projects: 'Introduction to content design' and 'Introduction to product management' – both hosted on FutureLearn.
Location London
Activity
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Chris A
Noted! Thanks for your feedback Chris – we'll take it into account when reviewing the content ahead of the course's next run in the new year.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Leighton Bruce
You're right they're sitting on the floor. We do have enough chairs for everyone in the office but we also have various breakout areas where staff can take a break or have an informal chat with colleagues, and it looks like that group chose to sit on the floor to do that! And, of course, the video was filmed pre-Covid!
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These are definitely justifiable concerns. Having said that, using techniques like pair writing can actually save you time or speed things up because you'll be more likely to design the right thing right from the start and avoid redoing things that were wrong or didn't meet your users' needs fully.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Jenny Clift
Good luck!
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Many people will have only come across it in a software development context but it can certainly be used in content design as well!
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Thanks for sharing Jenny. It's true that different countries use different terminologies and they may be at different stages of their adoption of content design principles. You're right that problem solving skills are definitely transferable and incredibly useful for any content designer!
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Thanks for sharing Sarah. You're right that there are lots of similarities between content design and learning design.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Ben Skelton
Hi Ben, certificates are only available to users who have paid for an upgrade. Does that apply to you or did you access the course for free?
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Why is the number of new users important in your context?
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Or it can mean they found what they needed quickly so the page was actually useful!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Vanessa S
Thanks for sharing, Vanessa. Interesting approach! Do you regularly go over your content to check which pieces should have the archival notice attached to them?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sonali D
It can be hard when you don't have direct control over the review/archive stages. How can you go about ensuring that your stakeholders do what they need to do with the content?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Rachel Hill
A reminder system definitely sounds like a good idea!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Lisa P
It's great you can populate them with data to see what the real thing would look like!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Shawna Eadie
Definitely a prototype!
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Paragraphs are often much shorter than what you'd expect. It's usually one thought per paragraph, which sometimes means one sentence. It makes text so much easier to read!
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Brilliant - well done.
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Glad you enjoyed it!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Graeme Sim
That's definitely true!
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Thanks for sharing Janara. What's the first step you think your organisation can take to make the content more user-friendly?
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That's why it's so important to provide accessible alternatives to video. It doesn't just help users with permanent accessibility needs but also those who just happen to be in a situation where they can't use the video.
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@LisaLeggett I can imagine it's something most organisations are working on at the moment. Good luck!
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That's definitely a great way to understand your users better and see how they really experience your site.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Ian Clare
Great point – correct colour contrast is so important. And it makes things better for all of us – not just users with specific accessibility needs relating to their vision.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Helen Roberts
Definitely a good idea to build accessibility into your usual processes. That way it doesn't seem like an add-on or 'extra work'. Hope you enjoy the content of this week Helen!
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@RolandO Absolutely. One thing that our learners consistently shared in the comments in the first run of this course was the importance of showing people data and evidence of outcomes because that's the best way to demonstrate that something has worked in the past and can work in future projects.
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@RebeccaGreaves Thanks for sharing Rebecca. Bringing things to live like that certainly improves your ability to imagine the real user, their context and the challenges they're facing. And that results in better content.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Joseph Burton
Great to hear you've enjoyed the course so far Joseph. Thanks for your feedback!
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Absolutely - great point Roland.
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Some really good points - thanks for sharing Lee!
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Perhaps a style guide could be a good starting point?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sue Asher
One way to get people interested is to make them aware that accessibility is not just about elderly users. It's about all of us. All of us can have an accessibility need at one point or another, even if it's just temporary (such as having a broken arm or trying to read something from your screen when it's sunny).
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Helen Davis
Is there any way you can demonstrate to your colleagues the effort that's involved in making things accessible? Or maybe the impact of the work too?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Andrew Tempest
We do point you to information about this in this week's content – hope you find it useful!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Liz Hare
Building accessibility in right from the start is certainly something we should be aiming to do with every piece of content. Hope you get some useful learnings out of this week Liz!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Mindy Brueggemann
There are certainly differences in what each of the role focuses on but what makes them similar is the focus on the user. Hope you enjoy this week of the course!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Ben Black
Good to hear you enjoyed the first week of the course Ben! Hope you get what you need out of this week too.
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Good luck!
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Thanks for sharing Rebecca. Are there any particular elements of their maps that you could share with other learners on here?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Samantha Slater
Glad you're finding it useful Samantha – thanks for the feedback.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Elaine Lawther
Good to hear you've enjoyed it so far!
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@NathanDriver That's interesting. Could you give some examples? It would be interesting to see what terminology other organisations use.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Gwen Rino
Welcome to the course Gwen! We do talk about how content design relates to other disciplines quite a bit throughout the course so hopefully you will get what you need out of it!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Rhonda M
Welcome to the course Rhonda - hope you find it useful!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Kay Paton
Great, welcome to the course Kay!
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Have you got any thoughts on how to convince stakeholders that it is indeed worth it?
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It's interesting that many digital organisations like this traditional way of working using post-it notes. In my experience, it's good for collaboration and helps you visualise things better.
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That's a very good comparison - thanks for sharing Lisa.
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It's definitely good (and essential) to be able to distinguish between needs and nice-to-haves!
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It's definitely a user need - thanks for sharing!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sonali D
Some great examples - thanks for sharing!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Alison Ashby
Welcome to the course Alison! It will be great to hear more about your experience with content in the local government context so do feel free to share it in the comments throughout the course!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sarah Key
Welcome to the course Sarah! Hope you manage to get what you need out of it!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sean Purser
That's a beautiful place to be working from! Hope you enjoy the course Sean.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Madi Walsh
Welcome to the course Madi! It will be great to hear more about your experience with content design in the arts sector – do feel free to share it in the comments throughout the course!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Ian Dunne
Welcome to the course Ian! Hope you can share some of your insights into creating accessible content on the course steps about accessibility. Enjoy the course!
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@RosWoodhouse Great points, thanks for sharing Ros!
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@JenniferGunthardt Great, thank you for letting us know Jennifer!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Elanor C
Fantastic – thank you for attending, Elanor!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Lisa Hallett
Thank you for your comment, Lisa – great to hear you enjoyed the course!
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@dancolbourne Hi Dan, thank you for the feedback. We will bear it in mind when designing the next iteration of this course. In the meantime, you may want to take a look at some of our blogs, where we share our work. I can't think of specific blog posts to direct you to, but there's plenty of interesting stories of how teams in government have worked on...
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Jessica Lucas
Welcome to the course, Jessica – hope you enjoy it!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Paul Kearney
@PaulKearney Thank you for flagging this, Paul, and I apologise. I can't believe we hadn't considered this when we were putting together this lesson. We will certainly adapt this activity to make it more accessible in the next run of the course.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Erin T
Great to hear that, Erin. And thank you for sharing with your colleagues!
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Good point, Sharon. Have you or anyone else got any ideas for how to work with the service manager or subject matter expert to ensure the non-essential information doesn't find its way into the final product?
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Thank you for sharing, Julie. I'd be interested to know what your main findings were.
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You're right that sometimes there may be conflict between the two. Especially when you're designing content for a commercial organisation whose objective is to sell a product rather than just inform or provide a free service. There are certainly ways in which the two can be combined, though, to produce content that is both clear and effective.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Sally McGrath
Some very good points – thank you all.
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What kind of KPIs do you have in mind specifically?
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Adam Spencer
Thanks Adam – glad you enjoyed the course!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to John Lew
Good luck, John!
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Thank you Amanda – glad you learned something new!
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That's a good point – thank you, Anne. Pair writing is not for everyone but it can also be adapted to suit different people's working styles.
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@CorinnaBennett That sounds very useful and could probably be built into any CMS.
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Thank you for sharing, Riya. Have you got any thoughts on how to make it more perceivable and robust?
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Welcome to the course Luiza. Hope you find it useful!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Liam Adams
Welcome to the course Liam. Hope you enjoy it!
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Brilliant – thank you for sharing!
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There's a good definition that another learner shared above (@John-HenryBarac). Essentially, iterating content is all about making continuous improvements to it based on things you learn about how your users are or are not using it.
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That's a good point. Have you or anyone else got any thoughts on how to organise this so that specific pieces of content come up for review at the right time intervals?
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Thank you for your feedback Francesca. We will be looking into how we can simplify the language even further before the next run of this course.
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@SimonPort No problem, your feedback is actually really useful! I'm sure many content designers work on complex services so it's definitely something we'll be looking to incorporate into the next iteration of the course. Thanks!
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@MargL Thanks for sharing, Marg. You're right that things like that can easily get forgotten, especially when there are more pressing priorities relating to producing new content. If anyone else has any experience of designing review mechanisms for existing content, feel free to share them in this thread!
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Heather Middleton
Great to hear you're finding it useful, Heather!
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That's a great point – thanks for sharing, Simon. How did you check your users' understanding of the information? Was it through a survey they were asked to take upon leaving the site or something else?
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Very good points – thanks for sharing, both. Another issue with Google Analytics is that a significant part of the data is hidden due to privacy reasons, which makes it easy to draw the wrong kind of conclusions from sometimes very limited samples.
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Hi Susan. The 'page views' metric includes multiple views by the same user. So if one user views a page once and another user views the same page 3 times, then the total page views count will be 4. The 'unique page views' metric, on the other hand, only counts visits. So the 3 times the second user viewed the page will be counted as 1 unique page view. So in...
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That's an interesting point, Marg. Have you now got a process in place for ensuring you carry out frequent checks of older content? If so, what are its main principles?
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Welcome to the course, Victoria!
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@AndyBudd Fantastic – thank you for sharing. I'm sure other learners will find those useful when thinking about accessible content in their own work.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Eliza Compton
@CarolinaT Thank you for sharing – that's very interesting! I'm not a service designer but I imagine collecting information and feedback from users at all stages of the service helps to design it end to end, and creates a better experience for those join at different points in time.
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@SarahDownes Very true!
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@AndreaMercado That's super useful – thank you for sharing, Andrea!
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That's a very good point – thank you for sharing, John!
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Perhaps getting the graphic designers involved at the start of the process could help? I do realise it's not always possible, though!
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Thank you for sharing, Lisa. Have you or anyone else got any thoughts on how we can encourage content 'owners' to make changes or remove obsolete information when we encounter resistance?
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Thank you for sharing, Vanessa. How do you ensure that that's the case?
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That's interesting. Most of the time when people say 'style guide', they mean something that dictates how to write online. But the offline aspect is equally important. What are the main differences between the two sets of guidelines? Or are they exactly the same for online and print?
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Thank you for your comment, Simon. We will attempt to incorporate some guidance on this in a future iteration of this course.
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Agnieszka Murdoch replied to Kathryn Baxendale
Thank you for your comment, Kathryn. It's great to hear you got some value out of the conversations with the other learners on this course.
