content-strategy
owl-listener/designer-skills
Define what content a product needs, how it's structured, and who owns it.
What is content-strategy?
Content Strategy helps you plan and govern the content that makes a product useful and trustworthy. Use it when content itself is the problem—to audit existing material, define content types and models, establish voice and tone, and clarify ownership and maintenance workflows.
- Conduct content audits to inventory existing content by type, location, owner, and performance, identifying gaps and redundancy
- Define content models that specify types, attributes, and relationships to drive both design and engineering decisions
- Establish voice and tone guidelines with examples for different contexts (error states, success states, legal content)
- Create content governance frameworks that clarify who creates, reviews, approves, and maintains content
- Map content hierarchy (primary, secondary, tertiary) to align with user needs and design priorities
How to install content-strategy
npx skills add https://github.com/owl-listener/designer-skills --skill content-strategyHow to use content-strategy
- 1.Conduct a content audit: inventory all existing content by type, location, owner, age, and performance; classify each as keep, revise, consolidate, or remove
- 2.Interview users and stakeholders to understand content needs, vocabulary, and pain points
- 3.Define your content model: specify content types, their attributes, and relationships between types
- 4.Establish voice and tone guidelines with concrete examples and counter-examples for each context or register
- 5.Create a governance framework: document who creates content, who reviews it, approval workflows, review cycles, and the source of truth
- 6.Document and socialize the strategy with your team—content strategy only works if writers and teams follow it
Use cases
- Audit a product before redesign to understand what content exists, what's outdated, and what users actually need
- Define a content model for a new feature so the same content can be reused across multiple contexts
- Establish voice and tone guidelines for a team to ensure consistent, on-brand communication across all touchpoints
- Clarify content ownership and review workflows to prevent content rot and ensure accuracy
- Identify content gaps by interviewing users and stakeholders about information they need but can't find
- Product managers planning content-heavy features
- Designers structuring information architecture and content flows
- Content teams and writers implementing strategy at scale
- Teams building platforms where users generate or manage content
- Organizations scaling communication across multiple products or channels
content-strategy FAQ
Content strategy defines the framework—what content exists, its structure, voice, and governance. UX writing executes at the component level, applying that framework to specific words in buttons, labels, and help text.
Information architecture structures where content lives and how users navigate it. Content strategy defines what content exists, its attributes, and how it should be maintained—they work together.
Start before designing new structures. A content audit often reveals you need less new content than you think, and it identifies what's already working.
Revisit quarterly. Content rots when ownership is unclear, so regular check-ins on who owns what and how often it's reviewed prevent gaps and outdated material.
Yes. Content strategy decisions—topics, titles, depth, and structure—directly drive findability in search and help you plan content that serves both users and search engines.
Full instructions (SKILL.md)
Source of truth, from owl-listener/designer-skills.
name: content-strategy
description: Define what content a product needs, how it is structured, and who owns it. Use when content itself is the problem. For the words in the interface use ux-writing (designer-toolkit); for structural hierarchy use information-architecture.
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
- Audit existing content and identify gaps, redundancy, and orphaned material
- Interview users and stakeholders to understand content needs and vocabulary
- Define content types and models
- Establish voice, tone, and writing principles
- Define governance: owners, workflows, review cycles
- 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
Related skills
More from owl-listener/designer-skills and the wider catalog.
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critique-color
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critique-composition
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critique-information-density
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critique-typography
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critique-visual-hierarchy
Critique visual hierarchy on rendered screens to fix misaligned attention and eye flow.