This week, we looked at what content is.
Content is basically everything that we see and can be a range of forms of visual media. Often, we think about content of a web page and just being a video or interactive feature, but this isn’t true at all. Without content, the average web page would simple be blank, as everything we see here is important content in some shape or form.
An example of content and its importance in design is the BBC News landing page. Everything on this page is content, from the written headings to images. If all content was removed from it, there would be nothing left. We discussed this as an example of designs importance in structuring content and creating user friendly experinces, as the design of this page has been structures so it dosen’t seem incredibly content heavy and has a clear hierarchy structure. Breaking news content is larger, while less important stories are of a smaller size, making the content here easier to break down and understand.
However, this dosen’t mean that content is just made for screens. In fact, most things that we encounter in daily life are considered to be content, from cash machines to train timetables. These don’t always look refined and visually appealing, however they are practical and meet the needs of the target audience.
Content design isn't limiting yourself to words- much of the process of designing content is spent understanding what users need vs what they want. Users tend to be very demanding about features and designs, as design is very subjective and even non-designers have their own opinions. However, it is important to render what users want usually differs from what they actually need.
We discussed an example of this during our lecture which I found quite funny in which NASA spent a lot of resources to create a pen that would work without gravity in space, meanwhile the Soviet astronauts just used a pencil. To my disappointment, there is actually more to this story as a private company created the space-pen and both parties initially used pencils, however, I do stink this is still a really strong example of want vs needs. Users demand luxury and new features, as their needs are often already met by most designs so they aren’t actually aware of their needs.
It’s important as designers to not overthrow meeting users needs to meet unnessescary or unrealistic user demands. For example, if someone is in debt they would simply want an instant solution, understandably. However, this isn’t realistic and what they actually need is help to take the steps to get out of debt, even if this is the last thing they want at a time of stress.
Content design dosen’t always need to be complicated. We discussed an how the ‘UK.GOV’ website listed doctors as GP in their search engine, as this is what people traditionally called their practitioners in the UK, despite the usage of the term doctor becoming a much more common alternative. The GP page on the UK Gov website was quite low on searches, however, once the algorithm as updated so that searching doctor would bring up the GP page it soared in visits. This shows the importance of identifying user needs, as this was a small change that had a massive impact on quality of life. By simply changing the search filter to understand one more word, people were able to find the GP page, likely resulting in easier access of GP services. I found it very interesting to look at this example, as I feel like when I hear the term ‘content design’, I think of a full redesign and complicated, lengthy process. this showed me how this isn’t always needed to meet the needs of users.
The whole internet is content, so to stand out you need to beat an ever-increasing number of competitors. Companies like Google and Amazon can credit much of this success to how they were able to stand out against other similar competitors. For example, Amazon created the one-click buy by being one of the first sites to allow users to save their payment details, encouraging sales and also meeting user needs by making the process of purchasing more simple and time effective. I think that this shows the importance of competitior analysis in design, too, as you can identify what wants and needs they meet strongly and things that could be improved.
Things stand out and draw in consumers because of push and pull content. Push content sends a message to potential consumers, for example, an advertisement for the new iPhone. Users don’t directly seek out push content so it might not be applicable or impactful for everyone it reaches. Meanwhile, pull content is what really draws users in as it’s rooted in things like search engines for users who are actively seeking something out. These two can interplay with each other, for example, if a users sees the iPhone advert and then goes to search for one.
We discussed how content design can be a very lengthy process. We looked at the ‘Design Thinking 101’ diagram created by Ingroup which outlines a workflow for design. This is much more in-depth than anything we covered last year, and I found it very interesting to see what a more in-depth workflow looks like.
