Corinna Keefe – Contributing Writer

Every good website, software, or piece of online content is good in a different way, but the great ones, the ones that stand out, have a keen understanding of why people are using them. Whether it’s finding information, booking tickets, filling out forms, paying bills, or buying a birthday present… the content is designed to help people fulfil their needs.

Content design is the discipline of understanding your particular users’ needs, and creating an online experience that accommodates them effortlessly. In this article, we’ve collected 10 content design examples that showcase the best of helpful, interactive online content — across web design and digital marketing. From government health advice to online banking, scientific research to food delivery, each example shows how to prioritise readability, usability, and seamless user experience.

But first — let’s review what we look for in good content design. 

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Content design is important at every stage of the content creation and product design process. It runs through every aspect of your content like veins through marble. 

The goal of content design is to help users do what they need to, as simply as possible, through whatever format suits them. Content designers dig into the details of what people want to do or find through qualitative and quantitative user research, such as journey mapping, interviews, usage metrics, and other data. 

It’s not just about graphic design, but also user experience, web design, copywriting, readability, accessibility, information architecture, and deploying the most appropriate type of media. So whether you’re a designer, UX writer, editor, content strategist, or web developer, content design is probably part of your job, even if you don’t know it yet.

Content design can be applied to both interactive and static web content. Interactive content tools can help people to perform specific actions, navigate through complex information, or get a personalised experience online.

The best content design also gives people a consistent experience through the words, visual design, infographics, pop-ups, and other elements of user experience — a style guide is important! This can be invaluable in growing trust, ensuring your content is accessible, and helping people find what they need.

Depending on who your users are, and what your user research tells you they want to do, that content might take many different forms. In the examples below, we’ll see how the principles of content design can be applied to everything from calendars to pie charts, search bars to sign-up forms.

We’ve collected 10 examples of websites, apps, and research reports from a range of sectors — government departments, tech start-ups, content marketing, universities, non-profits, research institutes, and museums — that all use the principles of content design.

Each one of those organisations has a different audience and different goals. So you’ll see them using different formats to support their users. But one thing unites them all: they’re brilliant examples of online content that’s designed to put users first.

1. Gov.uk

Gov.uk is a one-stop-shop for citizens of the United Kingdom; it’s where people find information and services from their government. 

Sarah Winters — who formulated the discipline of content design and now runs an independent content design agency in London — worked on gov.uk with her team, and she later went on to write Content Design, a practical book about the discipline.

Gov.uk is simple, carefully structured, follows a reassuringly consistent style across its pages, and is regularly updated and iterated.

The specific example we’ve picked here is a landing page that lists when bank holidays are in the UK. This page is a classic in the world of content design, because instead of showing a confusingly dense spreadsheet of all the annual bank holidays, it simply opens with a big green box that holds the information everybody wants to know: when the next day off is! Through this research, the team at gov.uk discovered that this was the main reason people were searching for this page.

There are several interactive elements worth noting, too. The page has an instant link to add bank holidays to your online calendar, and it also offers clear links to other relevant information such as school holidays, entitlement to days off, and how bank holidays affect benefit payments. It’s been designed to anticipate and answer users’ questions, which have been thoroughly researched and prioritised by the gov.uk design team.

2. Monzo

Monzo is one of the new generation of online banking apps that pride themselves on user experience above all else. Their goal is to simplify and demystify banking. 

So how does their website reflect that? 

The first several links on their homepage guide users to download the app, showing that Monzo prioritises mobile banking, and the language used is also different from conventional banks: you can “get” an account or “sign up” for an account, instead of “applying” for an account. The copy has been carefully written to make sense for online users. 

The graphic design supports Monzo’s goals, too. The website is full of white space and uses sans serif fonts. That’s not just about looking modern: it also makes the page clear and easy to navigate, a key part of good content design. 

3. Covid19.govt.nz

During the COVID-19 pandemic, content design became hugely important for governments and healthcare providers to keep people safe. This COVID-19 website from the New Zealand government is a great example of how to fulfil multiple complex and urgent user needs, and also how a web team can iterate rapidly as user needs change. 

The first text you’ll notice on the page is “COVID-19 symptoms” and “How to get a test”. That’s because the most important information on the page is for people who currently have the disease.

These headers are instantly followed up by a list of interactive buttons for other needs: such as when to wear face masks, how to get a booster, and where to get vaccinated. The buttons mean that the website can contain a lot of information, and convey it to the right people, as simply as possible. The social media buttons are also high in the hierarchy of the homepage, so people can quickly find the latest updates.

Covid19.govt.nz has a clear content strategy and architecture, and is regularly re-written and optimised for search engines, so that people can find the important information they need.

4. Nesta

Nesta is an agency in the UK that researches new technologies and analyses how they can help society overall. In this example we’ve chosen, they covered various new tech items and apps for parents.

The report covers a lot of detailed information, but it’s aimed at an audience that isn’t necessarily expert in tech, and parents are not generally a group of users who have a lot of time to spare on complex data.

Nesta use content design principles to make the report readable and attractive. The text of the report is broken up with frequent, informative headings. Links are shown in a bright colour so that they’re easily spotted if readers want to look up more information. Bright, colourful drawings break up the report even further — as well as hinting at the content of each individual section. 

5. British Museum

The British Museum website has to work for a lot of different stakeholders. It has to share information for visitors and tourists. It has to point towards research and news for museum professionals and researchers. And it’s also an important source of membership sign-ups, online purchases, and donations to keep the museum running.

That’s where content design comes in. The information architecture is carefully planned so that everybody can find what they need — while the overall design remains appealing and consistent. 

If you scroll through the homepage, you’ll notice that it’s illustrated with lots of big, glossy images. That serves several purposes: it supports the text on the page, showcases the best of the museum, and contributes to the museum’s image as a grand place to visit. 

The main headline of the website — and the first interactive button — are focused on “planning your visit”. That’s because the first group of users, visitors, are the bulk of the website’s traffic. But other users can quickly scroll down to find membership information, read the latest reports, and explore the collections.

In these examples, you’ve seen how content design can be useful to many different industries and audiences, and that’s after just a few years of content design emerging as a distinct discipline in the worlds of digital publishing and product design.

In the future, content design could make content better for so many more users and organisations. How could it change your work?

Corinna Keefe is a freelance writer specialising in tech, heritage, and education. Originally from the UK, she has lived and worked in 10 different countries.