What working on a news site taught me about content design
Want to make an impact when designing content? In this post Tim Guest — a content designer working on My BT — explains how thinking like a news editor has helped him make better content decisions.
Before moving into content design, I spent over five years as the homepage and content manager of bt.com where the focus of the page was purely editorial.
Our job was to hook readers in and get them to click on one or more of the news, showbiz, lifestyle and tech stories featured on the homepage — everything from political shenanigans to the latest Strictly rumours and gossip. With up to thirty different stories jostling for readers’ attention at any one time, we had to find ways to focus on the stories that converted best.
We used tools like Chartbeat and Google Analytics to A/B test different headlines and subheadings. In the vast majority of cases, the shorter, snappier headlines and subheadings got the greatest number of clickthroughs. So far, so Buzzfeed, you may think. But in a world where our attention span has decreased from 12 seconds to 8.25 seconds in just 15 years, the need to grab people’s attention quickly is more important than ever.
Keeping it brief
Our content design guidelines state that ‘We respect our customers’ time with descriptive titles, headings and links, and accurate meta data so people can find what they need’. And they also remind us that ‘We use plain English to make our digital products and services accessible to all’. When I moved into content design, I realised that keeping our titles and subheadings clear, specific and written in plain English is not an easy job.
These content features in particular are more likely to fall victim to ‘message creep’, where a stakeholder insists on adding in extra detail, a special offer, or a product benefit that simply must be mentioned. So consequently, titles and subheadings become longer, and less focused. They’re also much less effective. And if a page has multiple blocks of copy with long titles and subheadings, users will run for the hills.
So, as a content designer, what do you do? Think like a news editor and keep your titles and subheadings as brief as possible with a clear call to action — even if that action is just to make sure the user understands what you’ve written.
In terms of length, we aim for a subheading that’s only one line longer than the title (aiming for less than 60 characters, including spaces, so it’s not cut short in Google results). And we always make sure the subheading doesn’t contain the same information as the title and is optimised for search with keywords at the front.
Different approaches yield different results
In this first example, the copy details the various benefits of a product — but it contains multiple messages and is much too long. Realistically, hardly any users are going to read this (apart from the person inside the organisation who insisted you include all the info in the first place).
In the next example, the title and subheading have been reduced by a line, but they’re still too long. Imagine a page with several of these ‘blocks’ and you can see how onerous the on-page reading experience would be.
In the third example, the title works well. It’s one line and tells the story. However, the subheading still contains a confusing secondary message, and is still much longer than the headline.
The final example has a clear, concise message that’s easy to consume. The subheading is only one line longer than the title, adds context, and can be understood independently of the title.
I’d recommend trying a title testing tool to see how this works in practice. If you don’t have access to Chartbeat or similar, try opening two versions of the same live page in Google Chrome, and changing the copy in one to shorter, snappier chunks. You can then guerrilla test this with users and see which one they respond to best. Let us know how you get on in the comments below.
Photo by Obi Onyeador on Unsplash
