A recent post on the Drawar Community had us thinking about how our processes has evolved in the last few years. When we started, we called ourselves a UX and development shop; but that didn’t fit the way we approached ourselves and our work (though UX advocacy is still an important part of what we do). As academics first and web professionals second, we read, write, and teach. That is why we believe content is so important, to us it is the whole point.

In the past, we offered copywriting as a part of our services. But as we worked with clients, we found that content we created would sit and age as if it was perfect and not meant to be changed; content we wrote stayed beyond its expiration date. But when clients created their own, they were more willing to change, retire, and replace stale content. That is when it dawned on us: our copywriting services hurt the project.

As consultants, our time on a project is limited and the websites we work on have a life after we leave. Content needs to carefully tended, cultivated, and old content often needs pruning. Copy that we created for clients was being given undue preference and it hurt the overall project. This is why we no longer provide copywriting services as part of our projects. Instead, we train clients to manage their web content as part of the projects we work on. Walking them through the editorial process, developing a style guide, and teaching them to manage their own content. Before launching a new site, we act not as the copywriter, but the editor; teaching the content creators good habits, giving guidence to the curators, and giving them the tools to tend the content themselves. By the time our tenure is completely our clients are trained and caring for their own content; making their corner of the Internet much more useful.