I just did this for the new website for primepractice.com.au. (new site should be live mere hours from now)

I started asking questions to people within the organisation to get certain aspects of our products clear, and it turned out nobody really knew everything about what we sell!

Granted, business coaching comes with a wide range of tools, workshops and the like, but the fact that nobody gave the same answer to "What does our company do?" was telling, and shocking.

So I started by writing the beginnings of brand guidelines. Kicked it off with a simple brand archetype exercise to get a good foundation to write on, and built the concept of the site's copy on that.

You try to iron out the details of a product first. Then you write a few paragraphs explaining what it does in a more story-telling way. Then a single paragraph that explains what it does. And then a single line. And then you end up with a couple of words.

Those words go on the homepage and link to your product groups.

The paragraph goes on the page where you explain a little bit about each product.

The story is the intro on the page that describes the product in detail, with the whole detailed description as the rest of the page.

Hierarchy.

That's all the web is. That's all UI designers do. Add hierarchy to brands, their products and their products' features.

Really like the approach even if it's a little too black and white for my taste. Like why get rid of multi-column layouts? I don't agree that every site should be one column. Good responsive design gives you flexibility there - no reason to throw that out.

A great user experience is also about intelligent visual cues, evoking emotions, and gaining a wow-factor. But too often designers neglect good copy in favor of over-designed layouts. I also agree that starting with copy during the design process makes a lot of sense.

Neat!

This is great, but it's really content development with a smidge of IA, right?