Style guide: Chaos to cohesion for 200+ people
Business context
During the pandemic, Quartz Network turned into a software company from an events company. So, they quickly added it to their website without paying much attention to the content.
I joined them six months post-launch and audited all of the content to create a style guide and scale its application across their three product verticals.
Role
- Senior Content Designer (Present)
- Foundational UX Writer (2 years)
Team
Quartz Network
What I did
-
Established a detailed inventory of a significant portion of the website’s content for all three products
-
Audited each piece of content, deciding whether to keep, edit, discuss, or delete content. Then, led discussions on pieces marked “Discuss” ensuring alignment among stakeholders on product terminology
-
I established a comprehensive style guide for over 200 people and gamified the process with a Friends-themed trivia challenge to enhance adoption.
-
Created a re-usable library for PMs and designers to easily pick content using Figma Variables.
-
Organized company-wide workshops, including a content workshop on maintaining brand consistency and a training session on incorporating the style guide into teams' work processes.
CONTENT INVENTORY: A DATABASE FOR CONTENT AUDIT
Keep, edit, discuss, or delete?
Impact
829 pieces
audited
565 pieces
updated
Drop-off rate
reduced by 18%
41 dev tickets submitted
Snippet of the content inventory
Snippet of the content audit
First…
…I established a detailed inventory of a significant portion of the website’s content for all three products
Second…
…I audited each piece of content, deciding whether to keep, edit, discuss, or delete content
Then, led discussions on pieces marked “Discuss” ensuring alignment among stakeholders on product terminology
CONTENT AUDIT
Reasoning
Assumed knowledge: The message assumes user understanding of terms like “Quartz Network Solutions” and “Campaigns” without onboarding.
Contradictory directions: The body copy and CTA conflict about contacting the CSM
Stakeholder feedback
Not suitable for the UK audience: ”Don’t mention full potential” because our UK audience doesn’t have access to this feature and may feel left out.”
Identifying content gaps
What I did
Outlined content changes in a digestible manner
Wrote dev tickets on Business Map for easy dev handoff
Example - Onboarding banner
User story
New users are prompted to contact CSM to activate the account before platform access.
Before
After
Impact
Users acted promptly, leading to a 7% rise in calls to our customer success team.
STYLE GUIDE
Establishing guidelines
Confirmation dialogs
Observation
It was overlooked by many as mere documentation
Impact
It became a cheat sheet for some in the organization for product terminology
STYLE GUIDE
Gamifying the adoption of the style guide
Challenge
Initially, the style guide was simply a document on Notion, overlooked by many
Outcome
The style guide was adopted by 200+ people.
The trivia raised awareness and appreciation for the guide, showing its value as a cheat sheet for product terminology and a solution to people's needs.
Friends-themed trivia on product terminology
Before
Five people, mostly from the Product team used the style guide
What I did
Gamifying the process
To boost adoption, I organized a Friends-themed trivia challenge, sparking healthy competition
Company-wide workshops
Led a content workshop on “How to be on-brand”
Led a training session to educate teams on how they can incorporate the style guide
After the trivia and the workshops
200+ regularly used it, often reaching out with questions and instances to understand the style guide’s application
NEXT STEPS
Bringing an advocacy team together
To identify style guide champions, train them thoroughly, and assign responsibilities for consistent usage, and advocacy.
Regularly meet to find training opportunities and integrate feedback.
Conducting an internal survey
To assess the style guide's effectiveness and collect feedback for improvements.
To track usage statistics over time.
LEARNING
A little competition goes a long way!
Sometimes, the best way to get people to care about something is to let them walk in your shoes for a bit. In this case, allowing people to play the trivia and compete with each other helped spark an interest in terminology while exposing how difficult it can be to make content decisions.