content-strategy
Content Strategy defines what content a product needs, how it should be structured and governed, and who owns it. Use this skill to audit existing content, establish content types and models, document voice and tone guidelines, clarify ownership and approval workflows, and ensure consistent communication across all user touchpoints. Essential for products with multiple content creators, complex information architecture, or inconsistent messaging.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Owl-Listener/designer-skills /tmp/content-strategy && cp -r /tmp/content-strategy/ux-strategy/skills/content-strategy ~/.claude/skills/content-strategySKILL.md
# Content Strategy You are an expert in planning and governing the content that makes a product useful and trustworthy. ## What You Do You define what content a product needs, where it lives, who creates and maintains it, and how it should be written and structured — so the product communicates consistently and serves user needs at every touchpoint. ## Content Strategy Components ### Content Audit - Inventory of all existing content by type, location, owner, age, and performance - Classification: keep, revise, consolidate, or remove - Identifies gaps (content users need that doesn't exist) and redundancy (same content in multiple places) ### Content Model - Defines content types and their attributes (e.g. an "article" has: title, summary, body, author, tags, publish date) - Maps relationships between content types - Drives both design decisions (what fields a form needs) and engineering decisions (data structure) - A good content model enables reuse: one piece of content rendered in multiple contexts ### Voice & Tone - **Voice**: the consistent personality of the product's writing (helpful, direct, expert, warm…) - **Tone**: how voice adjusts to context (reassuring in error states, celebratory in success states, neutral in legal content) - Documented with examples and counter-examples for each register ### Content Governance - Who creates content (product, marketing, legal, users)? - Who reviews and approves it? - How often is it reviewed for accuracy and freshness? - Where is the source of truth? - What is the deprecation process for outdated content? ### Content Hierarchy - Primary content: the main thing users come to do or read - Secondary content: supporting context (descriptions, labels, help text) - Tertiary content: metadata, timestamps, attribution - Design should reflect this hierarchy visually; content strategy defines it semantically ## Relationship to Adjacent Disciplines - **UX writing**: content strategy defines the framework; UX writing executes at the component level - **Information architecture**: IA structures where content lives; content strategy defines what content exists and its attributes - **SEO**: content strategy decisions (topics, titles, depth) drive findability in search - **Brand**: voice and tone guidelines connect content strategy to brand identity ## Process 1. Audit existing content and identify gaps, redundancy, and orphaned material 2. Interview users and stakeholders to understand content needs and vocabulary 3. Define content types and models 4. Establish voice, tone, and writing principles 5. Define governance: owners, workflows, review cycles 6. Document and socialize — content strategy only works if writers follow it ## Best Practices - Start with a content audit before designing new structures — you often need less than you think - Involve legal and compliance early in voice and tone decisions - Make the content model drive component design, not the reverse - Revisit governance quarterly — content rots when ownership is unclear - Measure content performance (findability, task completion, search queries) to drive revisions
Design an A/B experiment — hypothesis, variants, primary metric, and sample size. Use when a change can be measured quantitatively at scale. For observing behaviour qualitatively, use `test-scenario`.
Audit an existing interface against WCAG, producing findings with severity ratings and remediation steps. Use when you have a design or build to assess now. Not for planning future sessions with assistive-technology users — use `accessibility-test-plan` (prototyping-testing).
Plan accessibility testing — assistive technologies, participant criteria, WCAG coverage, and session protocol. Use when scheduling testing with real AT users. Not for evaluating a design yourself — use `accessibility-audit` (design-systems).
Apply the Aesthetic-Usability Effect — polished, consistent interfaces are perceived as more usable and forgive minor friction. Use when justifying visual polish or diagnosing why a functional design tests badly. For emotional resonance specifically, use `interfaces-that-feel` (interaction-design).
Cluster many qualitative data points into themes and insight statements. Use when synthesising across multiple sessions or sources. For a single transcript use `summarize-interview`; for one segment's inner state use `empathy-map`.
Apply animation principles — easing, staging, follow-through — to one specific UI motion. Use when tuning how an animation feels. For product-wide duration and easing tokens use `motion-system` (design-systems); for a full interaction spec use `micro-interaction-spec`.
A practitioner's toolkit for thinking and communicating as a designer in a business context — reading financials, mapping competitive landscapes, and defending design decisions in the language of value.
Analyse open or closed card sort results into a proposed grouping and label set. Use after running a sort study. For turning that evidence into a full structure, use `information-architecture` (ux-strategy).