There is probably a certain point in time that everyone feels this way.
Most of the time, it is inconsequential. We get along with our lives and move on from it.
However, if you needs to be constantly churning out content on a regular basis, this is not something that you can just overlook and move on from. Coming up with fresh ideas could take up a chunk of time and affect other parts of the workflow. It could be a source of constant stress and worry for people working in this field.
Yet, with viewers and audience being constantly fed with visuals, content and ads, the pressure on content writers/creators to produce engaging content on a consistent basis is like never before.
But first...
Aren't they just the people on Youtube, Instagram and TikTok? Not exactly.
Early on in the project, it was clear that we have to define our target audience for clarity with communication within the team and for direction in the selection of research candidate.
As we have seen, content creators could be a very misleading term. It is often used for individuals who produces content for social media as a career or social media influencers.
While they could be part of the target audience, we are missing out several groups of people who we might be interested in. To be inclusive at the early stages of the project will be helpful in gathering a broad perspective of user behaviours from the research.
Since we are interested in content creation primarily from the perspective of writing, there are a few more groups of people that we need to consider. These are the groups of people who constantly need to produce written content for their daily work and are also most likely to be facing problems with producing written content.
People who are working in the marketing department of brands who are in charge of the content that are being published.
Usually, small business owners are
Writers who offer services in copywriting and content writing.
To be inclusive at the early stages of the project will be helpful in gathering a broad perspective of user behaviours from the research.
According to 88% of the research participants
According to 88% of the research participants
According to 75% of the research participants
According to 75% of the research participants
According to 88% of the research participants
According to 50% of the research participants
To make more sense of the research result, we broke down the general process of the production of written content into three different phases - Research Phase, Writing Phase, Publish Phase.
Don't always have enough information.
Need ample research to start writing.
Frustrated with organisation of information during research.
Struggle with producing fresh & interesting content.
Wants to write content that speak to my audience.
Want to collaborate with stakeholder and team members.
SEO doesn't have immediate impact on business profits.
Putting the research results into the different phases of the writing process gives us a better idea of where the problems are surfacing for the content writers and helps us in deciding which areas to focus on at this stage.
Now that we have an idea of the needs and the frustrations of a typical writer/content producer, we know what problems we can solve.
However, before we decide on what problems we will solve with EPIC Matter, we need to consider the other two important parts of the equation - the overall features and design of the app and the business aspects of things.
We need the web-app to
For them to want to use it over the plethora of word processing softwares and note-taking apps.
Since we are designing an entire web-app from scratch, we needed to build a platform that have sufficient features for the platform to attract to users to start using. There are plenty of word processing softwares and note taking apps that does part of the research process or the writing process. We need to be able to offer something more than what the current apps are already doing.
Since this will be the first version of the web-app,
Together with the stakeholders, we have decided that we did not want too many features at this point of time. It will not only complicate the initial development process but also dilute the value that EPIC Matter is trying to convey to their potential users.
We are focusing on the
During our research, one of the most common concern was...
It is clear that this is a common concern amongst writers and content producers. Targeting this area of concern will appeal to the majority of the target end users.
The two most pressing concern after concern about research was...
88% of the research participants
75% of the research participants
Although these issues are considered as part of the Writing Phase according to our research results, but it could actually be solved at the Research Phase. If the writer/content producer could do a more in-depth research on the topic and have better ways to synthesise their research results, they will have a better understanding of the content that they will be writing for as well as the audience.
Producing good quality & interesting content that will speak to their intended audience will be a lot easier.
We are focusing on the
This will bring about the most value to the users and the business.
So that it is a fully functioning content marketing tool that will be attractive to users.
So...
From our research findings, users mentioned that the research process is often messy and inefficient. It often involves opening up plenty of tabs on the web browser and having to scan through tons of articles. And by the time, you want to get down to taking down notes. You probably forgot which is the tab that you need.
So we tried it out ourselves to see how that will feel like.
This is a sneak at how the browser looks like during the research process.
All these apps are used in the Writing Process is some ways or another.
Some are designed and built for taking down notes and to organise information, others are built for word processing and there are others that are not built for writing but is somehow used for it.
While using many different apps throughout this process is possible, it is not ideal.
Transferring information from one app to another is a hassle and it is not efficient for the entire writing process. It doesn't help with the ideation and research process either.
This is a problem and also an opportunity. And it led us to our solution, ensuring that all the objectives that were mentioned previously were met.
From the start till the end.
We want to create a place where writers and content creators can do everything they need when it comes to writing and creating content. For too long, writers have been toggling between browser tabs and different apps.
EPIC Matter will be a place where writers and content creators can research, ideate, write and publish.
There will be four main parts to EPIC Matter. Each designed to address or facilitate each part of the Writing Process.
The Search function is designed to increase the efficiency of the search and research process.
The search function will allow users to search across different platforms. For example, Google search results, LinkedIn posts and Facebook posts. Instead of finding information from different channels, we want to consolidate all the information and present it to the user on EPIC Matter.
We also want to allow users to search for different file formats so that the search results will be more directed and efficient during the research phase.
In bid to eliminate the problems of opening multiple tabs on a browser, we included a feature to save articles for future references and ideation sessions.
The Notes section is aimed at helping users in the research and ideating process by allow them to directly make notes on articles that they are viewing and also, save articles for future references.
There will be two tabs - Articles and Notes.
In the Articles tab, users can view the articles that they have saved from their searches.
In the Notes tab, users can view the notes and annotations that they have made on the articles. The notes can be referred to when writing.
This is the Annotation tab.
It is designed to allow users to copy and paste certain parts of the articles/files, highlight parts of the text and add tags to it for future reference.
This is where the user can start collecting information and data and consolidate them to help them in their content writing at a later stage.
This is where the magic happens. The write function of EPIC Matter will be the place where all the functions come together.
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The sidebar was designed to allow users to directly access information while staying on the writing page.
The sidebar includes - Notebook, Templates, Headline Generator.
The notebook allows users to refer back to the notes that they have made and the articles they have previously saved for reference when writing content.
This eliminates the problem of having to switch between different apps and browser tabs when writing.
We recognise that with remote working becoming more common, collaboration is an important feature that needs to be considered.
Publish allows users to plan, schedule and publish content straight from EPIC Matter to the platforms they desire.
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Once the content writing is completed, there is a calendar that allows users to schedule and plan content posts in advance.
As you can see, the solution is geared towards helping users with the research process by introducing features that makes note-taking and referencing intuitive and easy.
On top of that, other features under the Writing Phase and Publish Phase were added so that EPIC Matter provides a full suite of solution for writers from the start till the end.
Throughout the entire project, there were several learning points.
Being clear with the UX process helps when you need to adjust the process based on the problem that you need to work on. Sometimes, choosing what findings to work on is just as important as collecting the insights and findings in the first place. In this project, the results from the Heuristic Evaluation and Usability Testings weren’t significant and it takes good knowledge of the entire UX process to decide whether it should be considered in the final ideation process.
We have to always think further. Sometimes we can be lured into working on specifics parts of the app or the website that does not give you the perspective you require to think out of the box. The answer to our problem in this project cannot be easily found from the functions or features on the app. We need to understand our problem well so that we could think of a solution that solves the actual problem.
Trust the process. In the field of UX design, understanding the wants and needs of the user is utmost important for us to create enjoyable experiences with our products. But sometimes, there might not be clarity till a later stage in the process. Nevertheless, if we focus our attention on addressing the wants and needs of the user, the answer will slowly emerge from the fog.
UX designers work on many different kinds of product.
Every of these product is unique in its own way. It is imperative that we pay attention to understand the product and the circumstances that is surrounding it to provide solutions that are intuitive and natural to the user.
EPIC Matter is at the early stages of its development. The priority at an end stage is to create a minimum viable product to launch. All decisions that were made have to revolve around this premise. As a result, we had to prioritise and focus on certain features for now. And that does not mean that the rest of the solutions suggested are ignored, instead we have to be aware that improvements will be made to the product at various different stages in the future.
Products do no exist in solidarity. There are probably many other products out there that are can do what your product is offering.
EPIC Matter is a content marketing tool for writers. It is entering a field where there are plenty of apps that are already working for users. That brings us to question exactly how are these apps helping the users and whether they are really effective. When we are clear of that, we know how we can position EPIC Matter to solve the gap in the market.
Always be listening to the people around you, be it the research participants, your group mates or the stakeholders. It is impossible to truly know and understand everything under the sun.
There are times when we have to work on fields that we are unfamiliar with and we have to keep our ears and hearts open to others so that it can accelerate our understanding of the products that we are working on.
Content marketing and writing is an area that is foreign to me. Listening to the stakeholders and research participants helped me quickly understand the thought process and workflow of a writer/content producer.
