BKA Interactive gets digital writers in early to achieve ‘bang-on’ results

At digital design company BKA Interactive, Senior Account Manager Leah Edwards believes in getting a digital writer engaged in most new projects from the get-go.

“The thing that I believe is very important but isn’t picked up a lot is the fact that content should be written at the prototyping stage,” she says.

“Often we’ve had to design a site with Latin in it and ask someone to pop the words in. It’s so much better to get someone in at the beginning. The difference is that the way content is written can affect the information architecture.

“A lot of the time, if a client is making a new website, they’ll have content on their old website or else they’ll know what kind of look they’re going for but they won’t have any real content.

“Once you’ve designed it and gone through that process and the content is handed over, it can often not match what you’ve built. Then you’ve got to go backwards and rework things and rebuild things.”

Pond digital writer Libby Schultz, who has a background in financial and legal writing, was brought on-board early to create the content for one of BKA’s recent projects – a new website for a leading investment company. Libby first sat down with BKA’s creative director to plan out the general approach, then met and interviewed the client, and then got stuck into the content.

“I was really confident to hand it over to her and have her go to the client, as opposed to having to manage the account or hoping that this person doesn’t put their foot in it,” says Edwards.

“And because we had the content at the prototyping stage, when we came to do the design it was just so much easier. With the content and the information architecture, you’ve got much more freedom to design because you’re not going to get any surprises.”

Edwards rates the final result as “bang-on” – the content even made it through legal with only a couple of minor tweaks. It’s a great example of how design and content specialists can work together and play to their strengths.

“It was very important to convey to the client that we’re the experts. Our creative director is the expert, this content writer is the expert. We will listen to what you say and we’ll work together to make sure you’re happy with the content but we will lead the process,” says Edwards.

“We can lead them down that path but we shouldn’t be writing the content on those pages – a specialist content writer should. If the client does it, there’s a risk it may not work.”