The power of applying a design thinking approach to writing

In the following article I will not encourage anyone to read books regularly or to practice writing on a regular basis, so he will automatically, without spending any effort critically thinking about the topic he wants to write about, become a better writer. This article is about content strategy and the importance of understanding the topic you want to write about clearly. Coming from a product design background and solving product design challenges on a regular basis, I approach problems mostly analytically. For me, writing an article is not much different from solving design problems — fundamentally, both articles and products need to meet any of the needs, expectations or concerns the user or reader may have. Instead of jumping straight into writing, I try to analyze the topic I want to write about first, asking multiple questions like: What is it you want your audience to learn more about? How to structure and in which order to mention your findings so you can make sure your readers have the least difficulties fully understanding the topic you write about? Are there any topics related to the one you are currently writing about? What topics and thoughts to mention in the introduction, so readers won’t leave your article reading only the first sentences.

Although it may sound strange for non-designers to think of articles as design challenges, writing is indeed about solving problems. Generally, readers spend their time reading articles to have certain benefits or to have less difficulties understanding a certain topic. Therefore, as writers, we have the responsibility to write something readers can learn from. We are the ones in charge of the topics we would like our readers to learn more about, about the underlying structure to convey those topics in and the tactics involved to give them a better time reading even about the most complex finding we come up in our articles. Good articles are about asking the right questions, about deeply caring what to tell your readers and about appreciating anyone making the time to read whatever you wrote about. To have less difficulties covering all the questions and challenges we are faced with when writing a new article, having a plan or a certain problem solving approach definitely helps.