In our October session of Content Improvement Club, we divided up into breakout rooms and worked on the same page of content. Then we came back together and compared the edits we had made. This session helped us to learn about what different editors look for when working on a piece of content.

The aim of this session

Attendees at our previous sessions have told us that they like getting a chance to work with publishers from other parts of the University. So for our October session, we thought it would be interesting for publishers to work in small groups and share how they approach editing a piece of content. We planned this session as a chance to get an insight into what we all look for when editing a page.

What we did

This was an online session hosted in Microsoft Teams.

After a quick intro to how the session would work, we divided up into small groups. In our breakout rooms we all edited the same page. The page was mocked up in Word and it was about applying for a staff ID card.

In our groups, we each spent 20 minutes reviewing the content and making changes to improve the clarity and organisation of the information. Then we all came back into the main room and took it in turns to present our edits, explaining a bit about out thought processes as we did so.

Each group made different edits

I thought the results were interesting, mainly because each group made different edits. We all noticed different ways to improve the text. During the presentation stage, there were murmurings of agreement, along the lines of “I hadn’t thought of that, but that’s a really good change.”

One attendee suggested that the list of changes would work as a good checklist for reviewing content outside of the session.

What we changed

Here’s what people changed during the 20 minutes.

Changed the structure of the text:

• Moved important information nearer to the start of the page.
• Broke up a long paragraph into smaller chunks.
• Added headings.
• Changed a paragraph listing multiple items into a bullet list.
• Removed information that is not relevant to service users (in this case, it was about what happens behind the scenes when you apply for a staff card).

Improved links:

• Removed an inline link and put it on a new line, following guidance in the University’s editorial style guide.
• Removed “Click here to” from the start of a link, making the link text more concise.
• Added a link to MyEd after the text instructed users to use MyEd.

Reduced the use of standout elements:

• Removed bold formatting from multiple sentences – bold formatting needs to be used sparingly.

Made the language more readable:

• Changed “It is obligatory to…” to “You must”.
• Added a definition of the abbreviation UUN (University User Name).
• Removed multiple uses of “please”, making instructions more concise and direct.
• Rewrote a question heading into a statement heading.

Reflections

The session seemed to work well because it had a large practical element. This fits with our general approach to content design training, where we try and make room for colleagues to learn through doing.

The activity drew on the expertise that attendees already bring to these sessions. By working in small groups, we were able to learn from each other in a structured way, and we had time to try out ideas in the breakout rooms before presenting them to others. I thought that worked well.

There was a snag with getting the Miro permissions right (my fault), but in the end that didn’t matter too much. Working in Word worked well for the main activity because most people are fairly familiar with it.

After the session, one attendee said:

Really enjoyed the practical aspect of this – interesting to hear and see everyone else’s ideas

Another commented:

It was great to hear everyone else’s suggestions and I think it’s really interesting that we all came back with different ideas.

How to hear about our next session

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Other training that we offer

More training is listed on the User Experience Service website:

Training | User Experience Service