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Reflection on the class - This lecture was all about considering what people need and how to display that information. We went over why it's important to use the right words and how people engage with written content. Everything we've covered in the past about content design has been about making sure that it is a necessary thing to have in the design and that it's effective, this class went more into depth about the written content and making sure that it is plain English.
The content style guide task that we completed helped us understand and summarise what brands want others to follow from their style guide, this was a good task to do in groups because of the amount of information in each style guide. We were able to break it down together and fully understand what the brand guidance was.
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I came across this article called 'Why I no longer believe in content design' by Nicole Alexandra Mitchaelis who is part of the UX collective. She has been a content designer for 15 years writing the copy for adverts, websites, books, blogs, and products. Everything she has written and built has had the aim to be effortless, easy to use, and have a strong voice but over time her enthusiasm has lessened for content design.
She always wanted to be a content design teacher and was offered her dream role as one but turned it down due to her lack of enthusiasm for content design as it has not evolved in her eyes. She is frustrated by the lack of understanding of content design, how content designers are often brought in too late, and the lack of appreciation.
The ways that she thinks that this could change is by bringing content designers in from the very beginning so that the design is impacted by them from the start creating a better product. She also talks about how a change in management and leadership could allow content designers to be given time and resources to make a better product. Better support for content designers as they are all empathetic and caring people, while still being equal partners as she feels that the lack of support is affecting content design.
https://medium.com/user-experience-design-1/why-i-no-longer-believe-in-content-design-e71aeb5f060c
Eye tracking has always been a great way of seeing how people read content and it has shown time and time again that the f-shaped pattern is how most people take in information by looking across a page down halfway across and then just the edge again. This means that the first lines on a page are the most important as they are the most likely to be read, this should impact how you design content as the most important pieces of information should be at the top and straightforward. It also means that the first few words along the left side of the page are very important as well as that they are more likely to be read which is why it's so important that content design is taken into account otherwise the design and purpose are pointless.
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/f-shaped-pattern-reading-web-content/
Postel's law is defined as ' be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others' which means you gather as much information as possible to create the best design for the user.
The main idea of hostile law is about being empathetic and flexible to anything a user might do, you have to be tolerant and understanding which will allow you to create a really reliable and accessible interface. All the information that you gather from the user you have to translate and define what they need so that the design is the best it can be.
The Postel law comes from Jon Postel who was an American computer scientist who made a lot of contributions to the early implementation of the Transmission Control Protocol and was intended to be a guideline for network engineering.
Laws of UX - Using Psychology to Design Better Products & Services by Jan Yablonski pages 43-25
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Reflection on my research - The article ‘Why I no longer believe in content design’ I thought was a really interesting piece with its perspective on content design and the way the designers are being treated and the simple ways that it could be improved easily with a positive impact on the designs. Eye tracking is an important thing to consider in content design as it proves how the users want the information as simple as possible. I'll use that in my app design. Postal law to me is less about making informed decisions and more about being empathetic to the users.
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