Content Design 101

Course overview

Learn how to create user-focused and accessible web content that’s easy to find and understand.

Join New Zealand’s first content design course.

Content Design 101 is an introductory content design course for beginners. You can trust you’ll get specialty training that’s based on years of knowledge and experience working in the content design industry in NZ.

Spaces are limited — book your spot today.

We’re currently running our Content Design 101 courses online.

The course is a mix of:

• pre-recorded presentations of our modules, which will be available to you before our live session
• a live online session, where we’ll work on a mini content design project together and you’ll get dedicated time to ask questions and get feedback.

Available course dates

Our course is open at the moment, which means you can register at anytime.

This means you can gain content design skills whenever suits you. You’ll get access to our video course modules and project work to watch and learn from in your own time.

Once you’ve finished the course you can book a one-on-one with one of our facilitators (either online, or if you’re based in Wellington there’s also the option to meet in-person) to go over the course content, get feedback and ask questions.

Cost: $595 including GST.

Sara provides an approachable, in-depth, and valuable course reflecting her wealth of industry experience in the content design process. Her insight and guidance has been fantastic for my learning.

Yves Plusjé, Technical writer.

This seminar was well organised and comprehensive, and allowed time for valuable personal attention. . . highly recommended for content advisors of all levels.

Geoff Vause, Immigration New Zealand.

We’ve trained people from:

Discount and payment options

We’ve partnered with Humanitix, a not-for-profit ticketing organisation. When purchasing a ticket to Content Design 101 you’re helping charities make a difference in NZ as Humanitix donates 100% of their booking fees.

Group discount

Book your team in! Book 4 or more tickets and get 5% off each ticket. This is automatically applied when booking online.

Pay by invoice

If you or your organisation want to pay by invoice you can select this option at checkout. We’ll email you an invoice and you can pay via bank transfer. Once we’ve received payment we’ll email your ticket.

Interest free payment option

Zip Pay is available as a payment plan option at checkout. You can pay off your ticket in interest free installments. Please learn about your payment obligations if you haven’t used Zip Pay before.

Students and community services card holders

You can use the discount code HERETOHELP22 at checkout to get 15% off your ticket. You’ll need to show your valid student ID or community services card on the day.

Content Design 101 in detail

Who it’s for

Our content design course is for beginners and anyone looking to learn the basics of content design. Ideally you’d have some web or content experience already, but this isn’t necessary.

You might be a:

• copywriter or editor
• digital advisor
• social media advisor
• communications advisor
• journalist
• UX designer
• product owner
• website designer
• developer
• service designer.

If you’re unsure if our course is suitable, please get in touch with any questions and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Contact us

You can also find out more about content design to see if it’s a topic you’d like to learn about.

The lowdown on content design

What you’ll learn

You’ll learn about foundational topics that we know are important in the content design industry. You’ll also gain practical skills that you can use in your job, or to help kickstart your content design career.

In small teams you’ll work through a fun mini content design project  learning skills and tools that content designers use in their jobs.

You’ll get dedicated one-on-one time with teachers and have access to ongoing support after the course has finished. 

Topics you’ll learn about include:

• what content design is
• your role as a content designer and who you work with
• challenges you might face and ways you could overcome these
• content design research/discovery to learn about people using your content
• user needs/stories and making your content user-focused
• how people read online
• information architecture
• web content accessibility and things you can do yourself to make sure content is accessible
• Google tools – Trends, Analytics (common metrics to improve content and make evidence-based content decisions)
• writing for the web – importance of plain English and structure
• helpful tools and software.

At the end of the course you’ll:

• understand what content design is
• be able to work through a content design process and produce user-centred content
• have experience using tools that content designers use regularly
• take away skills that you can use to enhance your current job, or develop to specialise and become a content designer.

When possible, we’ll also invite working content designers along to share their knowledge and to offer their advice.

You’ll have the chance to hear about how they got into the job, what they’re currently working on and to ask questions.

After the course

We want to build a community and offer you ongoing help. So if needed, you’re welcome to get support from facilitators after the course. You can email us questions, share what you’re working on and, when possible, get feedback.

Your teachers and facilitators

Sara Greig is the founder and director of Content Design NZ. She has extensive experience working as a content designer and lead content designer in New Zealand. Most recently she worked on creating and improving COVID-19 vaccine content for the Ministry of Health.

You can learn a bit more about Sara on our About page.

About

Gail Connelly is a talented senior content designer who has worked in lead positions in both the public and private sectors. She’s worked on a wide range of websites, from public services to helping the farming industry.