Improving the report writing process
The problem
Reports were legally required to be published after any election. The process for producing them had remained the same for many years and was led by research and policy teams. Content designers were only brought into the process towards the end, leaving a short window to review the content before final sign-off.
As a result, the reports followed the same structure year after year, and it wasn’t clear who they were written for. They were lengthy and wordy, with interesting findings often buried within the report.
Challenges and how I addressed them
Unclear primary audience
I ran a workshop early in the process with stakeholders to establish who the main audience for the report was and what they would want to gain from it. We used internal research findings and input from subject matter experts to agree on the report’s purpose from the outset.
Content design brought in too late
I made the case to senior stakeholders for bringing content design into the process earlier, explaining how this aligned with GDS best practice and could improve the final outcome. They agreed to trial the approach through this report, and I worked closely with a subject matter expert to pair write the content.
This meant we could have constructive conversations about what information was needed and how it should be written throughout the process, rather than leaving content design until the end.
The outcome
A review of the report’s performance after publication showed an increase in engagement rate and time spent on the page compared with previous reports.
Heatmap data also showed a much clearer interaction pattern. Whereas previous reports had a more erratic pattern of clicks, with users frequently clicking the navigation or search, the new report showed a clearer pattern of interaction with the content.
The new process was also positively received by colleagues working on the reports. They commented that it made the experience of creating the reports smoother, particularly by easing difficulties that had previously arisen during senior-level sign-off.