Content Health: A north star for crafting engaging stories

Role
Design Lead
Company
The Washington Post
Timeframe
Q1 2024-Present
Background
Success metrics for Creator tools were limited to speed and satisfaction surveys—resulting in an incomplete picture of how newsroom tools impact business goals.

Outcome

Aligning with ongoing product initiatives to improve SEO and copy editing workflows, I spearheaded a design strategy for Content Health—a comprehensive, AI-powered editing assistant that connects the dots between tasks, inputs and content types in our tools that impact story performance.

Opportunity

In Q1 of 2024, The Post's AI team introduced an editing "copilot" that generated feedback and suggestions for SEO-related story inputs. Simultaneously, my design team was crafting a new experience for planning and optimizing articles, exploring dynamic check lists and layouts for various editing stages. These early AI tools and foundational research for newsroom metadata workflows (showcased in the designs below) informed my early idea for Content Health.

Approach

My early strategy for Content Health involved three key steps:
1. Identifying inputs that improve our content (including those evaluated in SEO "copilot")
2. Quantifying those inputs based on quality and completion, and
3. Visualizing that progress to help guide best practices in the editor.

Phase 1: Discovery

To move this idea forward, I hosted a brainstorming session with the senior product designer and product manager lead of our editing tool. Together, we formed a shared definition for content health, gathered existing design patterns we can build on, and ideated on “how might we” prompts.

Next steps

This brainstorming session paved the way for early wireframes that moved conversations forward with our newsroom stakeholders. Phase 1 of this project established a shared strategy, solid design direction, and buy-in from our partners.

Phase 2: Discovery

In Q1 of 2025, newsroom and product leadership proposed a "first edit" experience in the editor: an AI-powered copy edit assistant that would evaluate progress and completion of important tasks. I identified this project as an opportunity to move Content Health forward and combine "first edit" and "copilot" experiences under one umbrella.

Next steps

I hosted two brainstorming sessions with my design team, our product partners, and newsroom stakeholders to inform how these ideas could be brought together. I documented a holistic strategy for the Content Health framework and led the team through workflow mapping and "how might we" activities. These brainstorms established a foundational design direction and shared strategy across design, product, and engineering groups.

Design direction

From these ideas and requirements, Senior Product Designer Morgan Nimmons designed solutions for a Content Health drawer in the collaborative editor. Editors are prompted to open the drawer to access AI-suggested edits for spelling, grammar, length, and metadata fields.

Next steps

To validate Morgan's designs, I organized two rounds of task-based usability tests to gather feedback from editors and reporters. These feedback sessions ensure Content Health is adopted across the newsroom and improves efficiency of copy editing and optimization workflows.

Research Objectives

Do editors know how to resolve an editing suggestion while typing in the story body?

Can editors review all editing suggestions for a story?

Do editors understand the relationship between editing tasks and Content Health?

"I really like that beyond the error and suggestion, having the snippet of where the word appears is so helpful." -Reporter

"Beyond the error and suggestion, having the snippet of where the word appears is so helpful." -Section Editor

"The content health bar in interesting and fun. I can see us wanting to get that bar up." -Reporter

"Almost there tells me I’m not done... If story is ok to publish, you might want to set up it so the bar is [full]." -Section Editor

Customer Insights

The coach mark prompting the content health drawer was helpful in explaining the concept.
Incremental progress indicators are not helpful.
We need stronger UX content around the building blocks and statuses for content health.
Reviewing and resolving errors was easy for all users. They loved seeing all suggestions at once in the drawer.

Related Projects

GRAHAM: Self-service story performance
The Washington Post
Shaping design strategy through collaboration
The Washington Post
Expanding design systems across site and tools
The Washington Post
© 2025 Created by Chelsea Brown