3 reasons to start with words
Organisations know they want to change, but they often assume that the only way to change is to do a big technology project. They call in some big and small vendors, and then they’re “procuring an IT system”. 3 reasons why they might start with the words instead.
1 - Immediately impactful
“The single thing you could do to quickly improve public services?
Redesign all the words.”
Rewriting the words is high impact because making a service/website/whatever clearer and simpler for users and customers immediately improves it for them.
Start with questions like: Who are the audiences? What do they need? What do we want them to do after they read this thing?
2 - Cost effective and reversible
Rewriting the words is cheaper and quicker than a technology project. Words are low risk compared to big IT.
The words are also reversible: they can change (of course, the words should change). When the cost of change is low, organisations can experiment, test, learn more easily.
3 - Builds trust and reveals opportunities
“It’s a really powerful strategy play.
Led with content design in Buckinghamshire and Essex. Quick way to make changes based on user need.
Transformed the web services and opened the door to conversations about forms, which led to big tech systems and (eventually) service redesign.”
Because it’s impactful and low risk to rewrite the words, a team can build trust and political capital in organisations that are uncomfortable with change. This helps create space to subsequently tackle more ambitious challenges.
The words - and the discussions about the words - also start to show blockers and opportunities for change elsewhere in the organisation. “We’d love to say that but… we’ve never worked like that before”.
Writing the words is a kind of discovery.
However, often changing the words won’t be enough: if the service is broken, good words can only do so much. But they can help make a start.
