Redefining content design leadership with SAP’s Kate Agena

Picture this — a project kickoff where every software development project starts with a content designer and technical writer at the table. Where human expertise in crafting clear, engaging content is valued as highly as the code itself. As AI continues to evolve, our latest guest on Humans of AI, Kate Agena, explores why the irreplaceable human touch in content creation is more crucial than ever. And why content designers must be part of this conversation.

Kate Agena, the vice president of content and design at SAP and founder of the Content Design Leaders community, takes us through her evolution from technical writing to content design. She highlights the pivotal role of language and content in crafting software interfaces.

As an advocate for the recognition and advancement of writing professions, Kate delves into the influence — good and bad — of AI on content creation.

Summarized by Writer

• Kate believes technical writers should be involved in software development from the beginning to anticipate user questions and improve the design process.
• Content design encompasses all interactions within a software product, from onboarding to in-depth documentation, and prioritizes user needs.
• Content design leaders face challenges such as lack of recognition, limited opportunities, and layoffs, leading to a need for community and collaboration.
• Kate thinks the focus should be on using AI to solve real problems that improve lives and work efficiency rather than solving non-existent problems.

Switching paths to find the right passion

Kate hails from a humanities background, specializing in English. Initially drawn to writing labs — akin to tutoring centers — she went after Purdue’s famous rhetoric program, home to one of the best writing labs in the country. But she quickly found the program didn’t resonate with her in the way she’d hoped.

“Honestly, I’m not sure I ever spent even a semester working in the writing lab,” she admits.

She soon had that scary realization that many of us have — the “Is this what I want to do with the rest of my life” crisis. Kate confided in her advisor, who suggested a shift toward professional writing.

Kate started teaching business writing and technical writing and was immediately happier.

Where technical writers fit in software development

You know when you dive into a new project, only to be overwhelmed by the unfamiliarity, and then you find clarity through a well-crafted user manual or instructional guide? That’s the essence of technical writing.

Now, imagine it’s your job to explain to someone how to roof a house, but you’re brought into that process after someone has already done the roofing job. How would you explain to someone how to roof a house if you weren’t there from the very beginning?

You can see how this would cause similar problems in software development. Technical writers brought onto a project midway often feel they’re trying to understand a complex codebase without witnessing its initial architecture and development phases. They may find themselves spending considerable time reverse-engineering decisions and processes just to be able to explain things adequately.

Kate argues that technical writers should be there from the beginning of the software development process. They can see the steps needed to get to the final product, anticipating where users might have questions or be confused. Their contributions could improve the software design process and minimize the need for extensive documentation later.

Reimagining the role of technical writers

And if technical writers start to operate in this fashion, how can you continue to treat it as an administrative role?

“If they’re there from the beginning of the software development process, how can you not say that they’re engineers? And so if they’re engineers, their pay is higher,” Kate explains.“ Just the status of the profession is much higher. And I thought that was more what is correct for technical writers.”

She wasn’t alone in reimagining the profession of technical writers. While researching her thesis at IBM, she met Lori Fisher, the user technology leader. Technical writers were called information developers, but they were still administrative roles — lacking the pay and status that Kate mentioned.

“She [Lori] went through a long process of really proving person by person that these people are engineers and they deserve to be classified as engineers,” Kate says. “She made that happen, and that ended up being, I think, huge for the entire industry.”

Defining content design

Kate stayed at IBM for a long time, eventually finding her way into content design. Sarah Winters coined the term “content design” fairly recently. She defines it as “using data and evidence to give the audience what they need, at the time they need it, and in a way they expect.” From that definition, it’s clear that user needs come first.

Kate considers content an end-to-end experience, encompassing all interactions (not just words) within a software product, from onboarding to in-depth documentation. This can include UI text, progressive disclosures, guided tours, and comprehensive articles. All of these things create a holistic content journey for users.

Addressing ‌challenges in a newly defined role

Change usually doesn’t happen overnight or come without a few obstacles.  Kate identified three main challenges in content design.

1. Lack of recognition

Kate says we’re making progress, but product design leaders often don’t consider content designers part of the design leadership. This issue stems from a perception that content design — which can encompass content designers and UX writers — doesn’t hold the same status as product design. Visual and interactive design has traditionally dominated the design world, with content often relegated to the sidelines. Researchers might sometimes get a seat at the table, but content designers? Not so much.

2. Limited opportunities

In many organizations, the content hierarchy often tops out at manager or senior manager, with senior directors being a rare exception. This cap makes it difficult to move up. Kate suggests pivoting into UX leadership. As organizations reshape and decentralize their content design, it’s a place to come together in a more unified and collaborative environment.

3. And layoffs

Hardly any role is immune to layoffs. In the wake of layoffs, a handful of content designers find themselves scattered, reporting to design leaders rather than content design leaders. With no content-specific leadership, they crave a way to reunite and collaborate with fellow content designers.

Creating community for content design leaders

Kate decided to do something about all these challenges. She built a community called Content Design Leaders to advocate for the profession and create a space for writers to connect, support, and understand their shared potential.

In their first month, the team tackled the challenge of navigating ambiguity, with AI and advocacy taking center stage. The looming question was straightforward: How could they use AI effectively and make sure their work was understood, especially when higher-ups might underestimate their roles — or believe AI could replace them?

Kate sees any software experience as a lively dialogue between the user and interface — all made possible through the power of words. Without those words, users would find the interface unusable. That’s why it’s crucial to help product leaders grasp the fundamental importance of content in their products.

Preparing enterprise data for AI transformation

She also senses a pressing need to clean up and structure data, to add meta data — all before AI can approach its true potential. This kind of work, she says, is often overlooked by companies reluctant to invest in the necessary resources. It requires a content design team’s existing expertise, numerous reviews, and meticulous brand compliance work.

This isn’t as quick of a fix as some companies might believe. But, as Kate puts it, “It gives us the chance that if we put that time in, we can output it in a whole bunch of different ways. We still need to be able to, as humans, put that time in. And so that’s the part that I think maybe they’re missing. And as a community, we’re talking about, how do we use this? How do we communicate something that’s accurate in a way that kind of cuts through some of the hype and gives an accurate view of, okay, where’s the potential here?”

Where AI currently fits into content design work

Kate has been committed to advancing writing professions for a long time, and she admits that AI initially felt like it could be a threat. After playing around with it a bit more, she realized as impressive as AI is, it’s nowhere near a replacement for a writer.

And as she started to understand how LLMs function and what they do, she realized it’s not the same as her writing process — a similar sentiment shared by a previous HoAI guest, Mary Ellen Slayter. AI isn’t replacing the “writing” aspect, which helped ease some anxiety and let her start experimenting more and more with the technology.

“It’s very useful as a way to summarize things. It’s really useful when you want to take something and like totally take a different approach to it, but it can’t do all that a human writer can do at this point,” Kate says. “And I think that we have to really hold onto that human aspect of things as well.”

As Kate enters a new role as a leader at SAP, she explores the new ways AI is incorporated into her daily work. She’s just started experimenting with their in-house AI writing assistant.

“I think that we need to think about AI as this tool that we can use,” Kate says. “There’s been changes in tools for a long time and writers have ‌had to change with the times and relearn, and relearn, and relearn.”

Striking the right balance between humans and AI

Kate stresses the importance of focusing on the problems AI should solve. She believes that just because something is possible with AI doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. The key, she argues, is to use AI to address real issues that can improve lives and work efficiency rather than solving non-existent problems.

“We don’t have a problem of, there’s not enough creative people who wanna make music, so I don’t think we need to have AI music,” Kate explains.

Kate has focused her entire career on continuous learning and using new developments to advance the writing profession. She believes that the unique skillset of writers‌ — ‌combining systems thinking, empathy, and strong writing abilities‌ — ‌is often underappreciated.

“We have this really specialized skillset. There’s so much potential to use it for so much good in the world,” Kate says. “And I feel like the more status that we can get in our professions, the more likely we are going to be to bring that in.”

When you mix the human touch of writers with AI’s ability to boost personalization and content delivery, you’re looking at an exciting, people-first future. Businesses get smarter, products become better, and consumer experiences are richer — all by getting the right info to the right folks super efficiently.

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