After the lecturer today my understanding is that content comes before the act of designing as it is the meaning and purpose behind the design. Us as the users are the product that generate the content through our devices such as tablets, phones, larger touch screens etc. Using content design helps us as designers research so we can identify a users needs rather than what they want without limiting ourselves to just words on a page. By using problem statements to help pose questions to solve what the user needs, we can collect content that isn’t only plain text but also answers in the form of charts, pictures, diagrams or polls etc. It is our job as content designers to decide which way to collect this content is the best way to fulfil the needs of the users.
Within Content design there is 3 different levels; Surface. Structure and Scope. The scope is the research of the audience, this may include their age or tech knowledge. This part is important as when solving a problem you need to form an understanding of who needs this resolution and how they are going to use it. For some of my ideas for my smartwatch UI, my scope would be people with diabetes for a UI which helps detect high or low blood sugar levels or a pollen detection for those who suffer from hay fever.
The structure is really decided around who your scope audience is and can change depending on what suits them best. It helps form the learnability, usability and accessibility of the content for the audience so keeping it consistent and simple helps the user become more familiar with the content. This could be by keeping the theming consistent so the whole AI looks the same.
The surface is the final polish of the content and how it looks. It is making sure that the content solves the problem and it is a tone of voice which they can understand and be able to use with ease.
We then looked Push and Pull content at the different strategic approaches you can use to deliver content to the audience. Push content is an eye-catching approach where the content is “pushed” towards the audience, this could be through advertisements, social media posts or notifications. For our smartwatch UI, I could use push content as an alert you warn the watch wearer. The advantages of using this approach is it goes straight to the specific target audience resulting in quicker sales and more control over the delivery however some people may find push content to be quite intrusive and demanding.
Pull content however is content that a person looks for and accesses themselves based on their own interests or needs. Content which we would refer to as pull content would be a book, video or podcast. The use of a pull technique is normally used on more long term content such as the Apple iPhone where loyalty has been built up over number of years. Initially it can be difficult to attract an audience and their engagement when using pull content.
If there is no trust between a consumer and a company, then there will be no interaction. As well as building trust from the reputation of a brand people can build trust from small choices we make in our design process such as how professional the design is, if the branding is consistent throughout and the quality of the content you use. Poor choices can end up deterring people and causing them to go elsewhere or find a different solution rather than use your brand.
Today people want to access things fast and easily so essentially if it is easy to use and gain access to, it is going to result in a happy person. However you need to know your audience and their needs. For example, a guide book for teaching children how colours are made is going to be a lot less detailed than a university art students books on how to create colours. If you were to give a child a detailed guide, there would be no engagement.
Likewise to trust, if a service or product is difficult to use people tend to just look elsewhere. An example of this I read in the book “Content Design” by Sarah Richards states that the government site for booking a driving test in England used to be so difficult to use, people used to go to third party sites and pay more for a more straightforward and easier booking interaction experience.
Within class we looked at what a typical UX workflow which looks a bit like: