This week we looked at Content Design, we looked at what content design is, what are the types of content and how we would use them.
Content design is answering a user need in the best way for the user to consume it. It is the process of creating content that's easy to understand and meets user needs. Content comes in different forms, such as Emails, Social Media Content, Videos, Blogs etc.
It has been proven that people usually don't read as effectively online as they do offline. Reading online has been proven to sway towards scanning text rather than reading it. One of the most common patterns of reading online is F pattern reading. The F-Pattern is when a user has fixations concentrated at the top and the left side of the page. Users read to top part of the screen as this is usually where the headline is, the user wants to know if the article or page they are going to look at is interesting and worth their time. Then, users move down slightly and read across again but for a shortened distance such as reading sub headings or beginning of paragraphs. Finally the users scan the left side of the content in a downwards motion looking for key points or bullet points. Users can be in a hurry or just want the information quickly, and using the F pattern they can find parts of the content that stand out or seem interesting.
What does this mean for design?
It is important that the content being produced is broken up with visuals, subheadings, bullet points or people will automaicalllt find it hard to read and scan in an F pattern. The poor layout or long text blocks will be unappealing to users and discourage them to read the content.
F-Shaped Pattern of Reading on the Web: Misunderstood, But Still Relevant (Even on Mobile)
Sometimes there is no avoiding the way people scan content, this is just down to human behaviour, however Plain language is always best to use when writing content, if a user sees a word they don't understand this could encourage them to click off. It makes it easier and more inclusive for everyone to read if the language is plain. Users can receive information quicker which is what they want. There are also a lot of people who have low literacy skills and using this language will enable them to understand the content better.
plainlanguage.gov | Use simple words and phrases
In class we were asked to get into our previous groups and look at the style guides of different brands. Our group was tasked to look at Google’s Style Guide. This was quite interesting as out of all of the groups ours was the biggest brand/company worldwide, therefore they would have more users to be targeting at once. My assumptions before was using plain English, and have a welcoming tone to accommodate all types of users. Also because Google is a platform that's aim is to provide information, they have to be very careful of the language that they use.
Something I noticed was that Google is very specific with choice of grammar and words, for example, skipping unnecessary punctuation such as using “Message sent” instead of “Message Sent.”. This is to allow the user to scan the text quicker and have a more smooth experience.
https://miro.com/app/board/uXjVIYnJJKM=/
This was a great exercise to complete as we are coming into the design part of the project and starting to think about our own style guides and our own personal tone of voice for our project. For a part of my research into this I will be looking at each groups findings to compare it my brand personallity.