Yes, and? What improv taught me about content design
Every year on my work anniversary (‘workiversary’), I make it a point to reflect on my professional development throughout the past year (see last year’s article). In an effort to challenge myself to look at my own discipline through a fresh lens year over year, I like to draw parallels between my craft and whatever’s top of mind for me as I approach this season of reflection. This season: Improv.
Earlier this year, I attended a drop-in improv class on a whim. While I do have a history on stage in certain capacities, this experience felt very new to me and was a big step outside of my comfort zone! Here are some connections I’ve made between the art of improv and what contributes to solid content design for digital products and user experiences.
Accept that there is no pre-established script.
The first thing to get right in improv happens even before you set foot on stage. It’s a psychological exercise; a mental shift. It’s the passive acceptance that you will not know the script ahead of time. The sooner you accept this, the less likely you will find yourself getting stuck in a rut.
In content design, there is a certain level of imagination that you may need to employ, especially in cases when there may not be a historical precedent to rely on. Maybe it’s a net new product or feature that’s never been built before. Maybe it’s a new term, concept or emerging technology that’s never been communicated to your user base before.
Accept this premise, get out of your own way, and just begin. Start before you think you’re ready.
Read the room.
When you’ve been thrown into an impromptu scene, you need to allow yourself some time to find your bearings and assess the landscape. What’s the plot? What’s the setting? What role do you play? Who is the main ensemble, and who are your supporting characters?
In content design, the discovery and exploration phase is one that ideally happens before putting pen to paper. We must carve out some time to understand the greater context including content goals and jobs-to-be-done, look at previous research/data insights or competitor benchmarks, among consulting other resources to help flesh out a content brief.
This contextual ammo will help you fuel the content engine in the same way that discerning improv practitioners will first gather some context before making their entrance. Take a beat. Listen before you speak.
Move the narrative forward.
As you enter a new scene, sometimes your cue will be dictated by the prompt you’ve been given. Other times, your cue might be getting to add onto a piece of dialogue from your scene partner. One tactic that is often effective in helping move things forward is the use of “Yes, and…” as a way to take a thought and add to it, for continuity.
In content design, this might take the form of thinking through what action a user might take, or where a user might go based on the content in front of them. This underlines the importance of partnering with your product design and research peers, in order to consider the end goals and end-to-end user experience.
Yes, we as content designers must meet the user where they are. And, we also need to plan for what they need to do now, to account for where they might want to go next as they move along their user journey.
View constraints as opportunities.
One thing I’ve noticed about the perception around improv is that people often tend to focus on the downside of constraints: There is no predefined script. There is no time to develop X. There is no way to anticipate Y. We can’t say this, or do that (rules which may be specific to the improv exercise at hand). But there is an upside… Improv lets you turn something out of nothing.
In content design, we sometimes need to reframe our mindset towards constraints in order to see the opportunities to come up with creative and innovative solutions more clearly. Rather than feeling boxed in by rigid requirements or pressures, we must think of ways to explore the edges of what we think might be possible. This step can manifest itself in activities like exploring spectrums of solutions, testing vastly different variants, or tinkering with content experiments.
If you’re feeling stuck in the rut of rigidity, reframe it as an opportunity to innovate. You’ll be surprised at what refreshing angles you start to unlock.
Share the stage.
Improv is more fun with friends. There’s a special kind of on-stage chemistry and collaborative spirit that is sparked when you and your scene partner(s) are on the same wavelength, riffing off of each other and trying to one-up each other in terms of humor and wit. While you may be funny on your own, inviting others to add their own twist can elevate the overall excellence and quality of the scene as a whole.
In a similar vein, content design is very much a team sport. Just as you need to rely on your scene partner to move things forward in improv, successful content is developed through thoughtful and intentional cross-functional partnerships and close collaboration–early and often.
Every one of our design and product partners has something unique to bring to the content stage.
Fail forward.
Improv favors the bold. It requires you to courageously try different things to see how they land (let alone if they land) and to gather instant feedback in real-time. (Trust me, the hecklers in the crowd will not shy away from giving you adequate signal here!) What this means is that, in an effort to quickly move the needle in a storyline, you are bound to make a few mistakes or missteps along the way.
In content design, we must learn to adopt a similar kind of resilient growth mindset. We need to accept that it likely won’t be until after a piece of content has made its way into the wild and has been measured against whatever performance indicator or success metric that we’ll be able to tell how effective it was (or wasn’t).
All we can do is take what little we’ve been given, take our best stab, observe, and then iterate.
Trust your instincts.
Improv is an exercise of complete surrender. There is nothing you can do in your power to anticipate what is about to pan out. You need to trust that your lived experience, empirical and cultural observations of the world, and innate sense of humour, are all enough to bring to the stage and allow you to add to the scene unfolding in front of you.
In content design, we won’t always have the time, resources to run proper testing or experimentation in advance. We won’t always have the luxury to beta test optimal messaging. When that’s the case, we need to rest assured knowing that relying on principles, best practices, and instinct, are sometimes the only resources we have to look to and fall back on.
It’s not about making the right choice, but making the best choice in-the-moment.
“Improvisation is the art of not knowing what you are going to do or say next — and being completely okay with that.” (Mick Napier)
Anneliese Herbosa is a Content Designer at Meta. Her favourite form of improv is jazz music. The last improv comedy special that had her howling in laughter trying to dissect each comedic choice was Middleditch & Schwartz on Netflix.
