Building a Practice of Content Design at Peloton
Context:
I joined Peloton Interactive in 2021 to build a Content Design practice where it had only cursorily existed before. Only one of the three primary product pillars had some support. That pillar, Ecom, had three “UX Copywriters,” and they were being managed by the design lead, allocated according to bandwidth only, and had little shared practice or culture.
Over the two years I was there, I expanded the team not only in number, but in depth and maturity of practice, quality of craft, career growth, and representation.
Key outcomes:
Title changes, job ladder creation, and pay equity
Problem: Titles were inconsistent and void of meaning
Solution: To better represent the actual work being done and not get confused with the “content team” (the team that makes on-platform class experiences), I changed the discipline to UX Content Design. This meant aligning our team with the broader UX team, telegraphing our core deliverable, and positioning us alongside designers.
Problem: Content Design had no growth path
Solution:I expanded the job ladder that had only reflected UX/UI design to include Content Design, facilitating promotions and codifying a growth path that had previously not existed
I also successfully advocated for the adjustment of pay bands to be aligned with Design. This took extensive research and persistence to enact, especially in the difficult time Peloton was undergoing.
Created a culture of content design
Problem: Content Design had no place to call their won
Solutions: What may have been table stakes elsewhere hadn’t yet existed at Peloton yet. I created an initial Content Design Crit, where members of the team could get crucial feedback on their peers and from me. This also served as a way for everyone on the team to get visibility to one another’s work and make valuable connections across product. As the team grew, so did Content Crit. A second crit was spun up in order to speak to specific product content concerns outside of Ecom.
Beyond crits, I also created Slack channels dedicated to proofreading, i18n, legal interactions and content ops. Before these explicit conversations were happening in an organized fashion, they were 1:1 and haphazard, with no sense of documentation or order.
Improved legal, internationalization, and terminology practice
Problem: legal reviews were inconsistent, last-minute, and reactive. Content Designers didn’t know who their legal partners were, and our legal partners were frustrated with the process.
Solution: By developing key relationships with the head of product legal and other counsel, together we designed a new protocol for legal and content collaboration. This looked like earlier engagement in any given product, as well as clearer roles and responsibilities.
Problem: German translations were both slow and of low quality. The team was using a hacked-together process of Smartling with a native-speaker back-up (often a PMM, lawyer, or German copywriter). Because the Content Design team didn’t speak the language, they were unsure if the output was of quality.
Solution: Working with a member of my team who showed the most strength and enthusiasm for translation, we developed a test to assess the quality of sample translations by borrowing a language manager from another part of the business. When the results came back conclusive, I was able to successfully advocate for a dedicated German-speaking UX Content Designer to own the localization output and process. This led to higher-quality output and faster production timelines.
Fostered personal and career growth
Problem: Peloton was a constrained business, and promotions were nearly impossible to secure. Additionally, the team was already quite senior, making ladder ascent even more challenging.
Solutions:
Design Lead program: With Design managers, we piloted a program where both Content Designers and Product Designers could pilot a product area or project. This meant content-led initiatives were led by CD, we had equal footing with our design counterparts, and CD had an opportunity to expand our skillsets into actual, hands-on design.
Foundational and community education: When I joined, I bought and distributed a stack of Content Design books for every hire. This became part of the protocol when anyone new joined. I also advocated and accompanied my team to Button 2022 and Confab 2023.
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