Contents
We worked with partners and other public sector organisations in Wales to write a book called Trio writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services.
We hope this will support those who design bilingual content for user-centred services.
Download the ebook
Download the Trio Writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services ebook
Buy the book
Buy a copy of the Trio Writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services (paperback)
Introduction
Trio writing is a more collaborative approach to developing content in 2 languages.
Pair writing brings together 2 people to work on a piece of content. Trio writing adds a third person to produce it bilingually. The 3 are:
- subject matter expert (or sometimes a user researcher)
- content specialist
- translator
Sometimes it becomes harder to work together effectively when you bring more people into the process.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all technique, and there’s no right or wrong: success will depend on your specific needs and circumstances.
But generally, you can think of it as:
- Planning and preparing
- Setting expectations
- Writing
- Getting feedback
Planning and preparing
It is easier to work together when we get everything ready before we start.
This includes:
- finding the right person to invite and contacting them
- doing research or collating user research insights
- shaping user stories and acceptance criteria
What we'll need depends on our specific needs and circumstances.
Find the right person
One of the biggest challenges we face as content designers is when more people are brought in for feedback and approving content before it's published. People who may not have been part of the process.
It's best when we find someone who can sign off on the content to work with them from the start.
Do your research
Having user stories and acceptance criteria for the content we’re working on helps us focus on the needs of users and brings our attention back to them when we lose focus.
These tell us what our user needs to know, and what they should be able to do after reading the piece.
They give us a boundary to work within and a benchmark to assess if we’re successful at meeting the goals of the piece.
Remember that user stories should be based on research, not our own assumptions. And we should be open to testing our content because the needs of our users may change with time.
Preparing your resources
These will depend on whether we’re working remotely or in the same room, on the same device or separately.
It's best to create a document that we can share and work on at the same time. For example, a shared Google Doc or Word document that's stored online.
We should add all the relevant information we’ll need:
- research insights
- user stories and acceptance criteria
- any other information that may be valuable
Setting expectations
It’s important to set clear expectations and make sure the people we'll be working with understand the work and what we're trying to achieve.
A good way to do this is to meet them before the writing session to introduce ourselves and the project.
It’s also an opportunity to explain:
- the work and why their help is so important
- how the session will run, and everyone’s role
- the users and their needs
It's good to send an email to summarise and document the conversation. This gives us something we can refer to in future too.
If we’re working with a translator, we’ll also want to discuss our approach and encourage them to ask all the questions they need during the session, and even challenge our writing.
At the start of the writing session, we should go through everything again. We'll emphasise everyone’s roles and the importance of working together, bringing different yet equally important skills and expertise.
Finally, and before starting to write, we'll discuss the research insights, user stories and acceptance criteria.
Writing
This is how we run a trio writing session.
We start by prioritising our user stories and acceptance criteria and sorting them by importance.
This will give us a rough structure for the content, where the most important information from the user’s perspective is higher up.
We can turn these into headings, so we may end up with sections like:
- How much is the grant
- Eligibility
- Apply
- Contact us
We'll discuss the headings and complete the sections with all the relevant information.
Keep asking questions until everything is as clear as possible.
If you are a translator, you’re trying to produce a natural and conversational piece of content, so remember to:
- be active and ask all the questions you need
- write alongside the content specialist
- raise anything that does not translate well
It’s in the back and forth between both languages that we’ll make sure both versions are as natural and conversational as possible.
If you’re the subject matter expert, remember:
- users are probably trying to do something quickly
- users do not need to understand the complexity of the subject
- things may seem obvious to you because you’re the expert, but if your colleagues don’t understand something, neither will your users
- write your thoughts down if it’s easier, so your colleagues can then edit them for clarity and simplicity
We'll continue editing and cutting out what’s not relevant to the user. We'll stick to the user needs and use the user stories and acceptance criteria to remember what’s important.
We'll note of any information we delete, as it can give us ideas for related content the user might need.
We'll try and make it as clear and concise as possible. Less is often more.
At the end of the session, we'll go back to the acceptance criteria and check that we meet all the acceptance criteria for the piece.
Getting feedback
Writing should not be the end of the process.
After the session, we should ask participants for feedback: how they found it, what worked and what didn’t, and we let them know what the next steps are.
After the writing session, we may have ended up with notes, ideas for other content, or a list of questions which we’ll need to get answered by other people.
We may need to do more editing and revising, especially as we get more feedback and test the content with users.
The benefits of trio writing
Separating the roles of subject matter expert and content specialist is valuable because of a cognitive bias known as the “curse of knowledge” (or the “curse of expertise”).
In brief, this bias leads us to assume that others share our level of knowledge and understanding of a topic.
It isn’t easy to know if something is both clear and correct at the same time.
Working together improves the feedback and iteration processes by reducing:
- errors and revisions
- confusion
- frustration
It also saves:
- time in calls
- emails
- other meetings for changes and clarifications
It also prevents us from investing time and effort into creating content that’s not needed.
At the same time, it encourages us to:
- collaborate and engage
- understand our users and colleagues and empathise more
- appreciate the skills and expertise we bring
- understand content decisions and processes
Ultimately, it means we can produce user-centred content at a faster pace. Better quality content that’s:
- based on user research and evidence
- focused on meeting user needs
- clearer and simpler, easier to understand and act on
Trio writing gives the translator a more active role, and the opportunity to:
- ask questions for clarity
- get a better understanding of the context and purpose of the piece
- write in clear and natural Welsh
The result is better content in both languages, where they’re considered equally.
And better services in the language that users prefer.
Challenges when trio writing
The process might sound great in theory, but we sometimes face practical challenges.
Ways of working
Problems usually come up when an organisation and its culture are not set up for this way of working.
So we may have to do a lot of explaining: not just why user experience (UX) is important, but also how users interact with your content and services online.
We may need to do lots of advocacy work so everyone understands the value of working this way.
Content and translation
This is especially likely if an organisation follows a content production model where services develop content and then request, and expect, to get it published.
Or if the bilingual or translation team works in a siloed way and translations are only thought of at the end of the process.
This means we may need to convince the translation team or management to allow us to work with someone from the team this way.
Service design
We may also find there’s a lack of understanding of UX, or that a service or product isn’t really designed.
It can be hard to communicate with clarity something that’s not clear itself.
Start small
Here are a few small steps we suggest to get started.
Starting small and running a pilot. Arming ourselves with resources and evidence. Finding ways to show the value of the process and celebrate the small wins.
We talk about this way of working with others and show the work as we go. Hopefully, we’ll find allies and champions on the way.
Start small and chip away, slowly yet patiently. As we say in Wales, dyfal donc a dyr y garreg: tapping persistently breaks the stone.
Download or buy the trio writing handbook
We worked with partners and other public sector organisations in Wales to write a book called Trio writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services.
We hope this will support those who design bilingual content for user-centred services.
Download the ebook
Download the Trio Writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services ebook
Buy the book
Buy a copy of the Trio Writing: Designing bilingual content for user-centred services (paperback)
Further reading
The School Essentials Grant Toolkit shows how we used trio writing to create user-centred bilingual content.
Blog posts
External reading