handbook/handbook-main/roles/sfia (legacy)/senior_content_designer.txt

# SFIA Role Guidance: Senior Content Designer
- [SFIA Level 4: Enable](https://sfia-online.org/en/sfia-7/responsibilities/level-4)
- [Job description](https://github.com/madetech/handbook/blob/main/roles/senior_content_designer.md)

## Summary of role
Our Senior Content Designers are strong practitioners who work with minimal support and can influence and mentor others to meet user needs and make complex processes easy to understand. They do this by setting the direction, assuring the quality of content design delivery within a team working on a complicated and large scale service. They are vocal and visible contributors to a healthy user-centred design (UCD) community and culture at Made Tech.

## Required competency for role
### Autonomy
- Works under general direction from Lead Content Designers and UCD Principals within a clear idea of what they are accountable for delivering.
- Exercises substantial personal responsibility and autonomy for delivering quality work on time and assisting others in their team.
- Plans own content design to meet given team goals and ways of working.

#### Examples of behaviour and responsibilities
_Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only._
- Proactively requests feedback from the people they work with. Able to honestly self reflect.
- Practices open and honest communication, active listening and demonstrates empathy and patience.
- Takes ownership of content strategy and solutions. Works closely with teammates to understand user needs and create the right content design approach.
- Creates, iterates and manages user-centred content using analytics, user feedback, and user research, as well as contributing to content principles, improvements and patterns.
- Works with team to understand why key ideas are being tested.
- Documents prototype changes and versions after each round of research for transparency and trust.
- Works within their team to create an efficient design process for testing ideas little and often. Ensures content design guides and operating models are being followed
- Owns and advocates for the usability and accessibility of design work going to production.
- Works closely with engineers to ensure major usability and accessibility issues within the team's control are addressed.

---
 
### Influence
- Mentors others in their teams about content design techniques and approaches. 
- Line managing a small number of mid and junior content designers. 
- Makes content design decisions that influence the success of the project and team goals. 
- Collaborates regularly with teammates and service users. 
- Engages to ensure that user needs are being met throughout. Participates in external activities related to content design.

#### Examples of behaviour and responsibilities
_Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only._
- Works closely with the team to identify user needs, write and map user stories, design content plans, create and publish content
- Drives team towards good quality content design by influencing their whole team to work on problems in a suitable way.
- Line manages content designers new to Made Tech and the public sector. Coaches them on where to spend energy and what to compromise on, using the design guides and operating models as reference.
- Presents clearly and confidently the design decisions at the start of each sprint to the whole team. Making it clear what hypotheses the prototypes are trying to prove or disprove.
- Regularly pairs with other disciplines in their team such as user researchers. Able to see when this is needed to move work forward and show the value of working closely together like this.
- Writes key content to form part of a minimal viable service a team can ship as its first release.
- Interprets what is most valuable to users and is feasible given the current systems being used.
- Advocates for the user consistently and regularly in and outside the team. Pushing for content design changes that will have the most impact while being possible to deliver quickly.
- Breaks a service down into content that can be delivered incrementally while still delivering value for users and outcomes for the client organisation.

---

### Complexity
- Leads content design within their team. 
- Investigates, defines and resolves complex content problems within a service. 
- Removes and adds content and language to make simple services that can be delivered quickly and improved upon with real user feedback. 

#### Examples of behaviour and responsibilities
_Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only._
- Designs content to meet user needs and make complex language and processes easy to understand.
- Understands and implements content design style and standards.
- Able to translate user stories and propose design approaches or services to meet user needs. Able to use quantitative and qualitative data about users to turn user focus into outcomes. Knows when to apply gov.uk style guides and patterns.
- Working with a designer to turn a new government policy into prototypes to test with users.

---

### Knowledge
- Has a thorough understanding of different content design techniques and ways of working. Can either quickly apply their own content design knowledge of the public sector or have personal experience of it they can draw upon.
- Applies knowledge effectively in unfamiliar situations and actively maintains own knowledge and contributes to the development of others.
- Rapidly absorbs new information about a problem space and its users and applies it effectively.
Maintains an awareness of developing content design practices and their application and takes responsibility for driving own personal growth.

#### Examples of behaviour and responsibilities
_Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only._
- Thorough understanding of GOV.UK Proposition, Design System and style guide and why it’s needed. Keeps to these components and systems wherever possible and understand the team time needed to create a new component or review content on an existing site.
- Explains their role as Content Designer in the different GDS service design phases. Can advise a client or team how to get the best value out of their time.
- Reads around the wider context of their teams work, be that client blog posts, ministerial announcements or news about a new policy. Can communicate the policy intent behind the work and how it relates to making the language of what can be complex policies easy to understand.
- Suggests activities and tools to their team for designing a service with fewer barriers for people with disabilities and other access needs.
- Attends events relating to public sector content design. Shares learnings with the wider community of practice at Made Tech.
- Trials a new content technique from other organisations in their own team. Then, evaluates how effective the technique is and shares learning with the wider community of practice.
- Decide what is the most effective way to test an idea, be that card sorting, a paper prototype or A/B test.

---

### Business Skills
- Communicates fluently, orally and in writing, and can present complex information to both design and non-design audiences.
- Plans, schedules and monitors work to meet time and quality expectations.
- Facilitates collaboration between stakeholders who share common objectives.
- Selects appropriately from applicable design standards, methods, tools and applications.

#### Examples of behaviours and responsibilities
_Below are examples of behaviours and responsibilities a person in this role might be expected to demonstrate. The list is provided for illustrative purposes only._
- Blogs clearly about ideas that have tested well and badly. Communicate what worked (and didn't) and why.
- Manages own time to get designs or content changes ready for testing with users. Is able to fit in other responsibilities like line management without it affecting their team's ability to learn and deliver value.
- Facilitates a workshop with their team and stakeholders to show how the different steps of a service might fit together. Is able to hold and move on conversations.
- Can demonstrate user needs focus underpinning decisions on Information Architecture, patterns, layout, language and design to stakeholders who may have had other preferences.
- Supports the development of content design at Made Tech.
- Represents Made Tech in the wider UCD community through writing or speaking. 
- Trustworthy, acts with integrity, openness and impartiality. 
- Able to navigate and handle conflict within teams and with stakeholders.
- Support the sales team in proposal writing.