- Organisation
- BBC
- Year
- 2020
- In a word
- Pair-writing
The challenge
The BBC used several outdated internal systems to commission radio, TV and online content, and production companies used them to pitch ideas.
The project was to replace them all with a single, simpler system. It would streamline how the BBC commissions new shows and content, and make it easier and more accessible for creators to pitch to the BBC.
My contribution
- Understanding what existed: I carried out a content audit of the existing tools.
- Understanding how it worked: I led discovery sessions with commissioning colleagues to unpick complex departmental and industry processes.
- Writing the system: I wrote the UI, instructional content and microcopy for both the internal and external-facing systems.
- Testing it: I led usability testing of the new tool with commissioning colleagues.
- Bringing people with us: I gained senior stakeholder buy-in for plain, universally understandable language.
The outcome
Before I left the team, all of the system's content was signed off.
Working closely with the user experience architect, we also got stakeholders to agree to replace several contentious workflow names across the old systems with one consistent taxonomy. Design and development continued after I moved on, given the scale of the change across the organisation.