Design for hero, strategically—a guardian of an intent

Teodora invites guests for a dialogue on web, text, content, and the mesh that weaves meaning and context around information and its variables. Recently, she invited me for a dialogue and it was such a joy to myself.

Teodora Petkova is a philologist fascinated by the metamorphoses of text on the Web. See some of her select writings for Ontotext, and know more about her fascinating insights at her website.

The dialogue

Here are a few quick snippets from the dialogue.

Vinish, what’s the best pattern to follow for weaving a beautiful brand narrative?

I start with the itch that this ideal customer cannot scratch or is afraid to scratch. It follows with identifying their status quo, their constraints, and why would they listen to anything new (a new product). I am not wearing any hat at this stage–neither of a content strategist, UX designer, nor of a storyteller. I am merely a guardian of an intent.”

How do you explain “Content strategy” to your seven-year-old son?

“I tell him that whenever you want to do something, use some instrument, watch TV, color a shape in laptop, or read a book—there are people who had worked to design that interface. And there is lot of common sense required to design it the way so that you like it. At work, this collective common sense by many people is what we call as content strategy.”

Low Volume?

“Low Volume Thoughts is a way to lend voice to these heroes so that we have a reference to see how many engineering teams worldwide are contributing to the massive technical debt every minute. We talk about plastic waste in oceans, and there are people who are doing amazing work to stall the plastic waste growth in water bodies. Likewise, I thought of this voice for the heroes who walk out of the product story. Since the story is not about glamor, I keep it in low volume.”

What do you find most fascinating about making a product?

“The fact that I can actually delight people across borders, geographies, and languages, is so fulfilling. Something, not even a country’s PM or a President can do.”

You can read the complete dialogue on Teodora’s website. I published this reference post originally at my own blog.

PS: A coffee with Woody Allen is in Teodora’s wish list.

Woody Allen & his Typewriter

And a cake where Teodora violates the cooking semantics.

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Vinish Garg

Vinish Garg

I am Vinish Garg, and I work with growing product teams for their product strategy, product vision, product positioning, product onboarding and UX, and product growth. I work on products for UX and design leadership roles, product content strategy and content design, and for the brand narrative strategy. I offer training via my advanced courses for content strategists, content designers, UX Writers, content-driven UX designers, and for content and design practitioners who want to explore product and system thinking.

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Vinish Garg is an independent consultant in product content strategy, content design leadership, and product management for growing product teams.