Week 10: Content design

UXD720

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This week touches upon my progress, content strategy, UX writing and service design.

Content strategy

One of the essential elements in user experience is content strategy which determines the type of users we are talking to, making sure the terminology is consistent and understandable and defining what they need (Shaw 2021).

“Good content design allows people to do or find out what they need to” (Winters 2017).

The process involves creating accessible content that uses simple and plain English (Shaw 2021). It is crucial to keep a content management system (CMS) to provide a content database that can be easily edited and managed. This also helps to support collaborative working in the team or company as the content may need to be changed to keep in line with the business needs (Kiruthika et al. 2016: 642). Studies reveal that fundamental techniques to drive the users’ behaviour require knowing your users, the communication language used, concise copy and content consistency (Kiruthika et al. 2016: 642). Delivering good content makes the user comfortable using the product/service and creates a trustworthy brand and business.

As a Marketing Designer, I work alongside the copywriter, and they make sure that we understand why certain words are being used. The choice of words used is significant because it can impact the user interacting with the product or service positively or negatively. I learned to keep the terminology consistent because the users will become familiar with the concept, and it causes less confusion when we are referring to the product.

UX writing

UX writing is the practice of crafting copy for an application or website. When preparing copy, it is crucial to write in a conversational tone. Talking to your users will make them feel at ease and this guides them along the journey, creating a pleasant user experience. UX writing is a method that creates brand trust and awareness.

A great example of a business that uses UX writing well is Apple. Apple’s website uses motivational and exciting words that are understandable to entice users to purchase their products. For example, they use ‘supercharged’ and ‘oh so pro’. The combination of words describes the app’s functionality in a highly positive and dramatic way. This is the language used in Apple’s brand to communicate to their customers.

The UX principles are guidelines to support you when writing copy. These include:

1. Be clear: Write copy that is conversational and has a natural flow.

2. Be concise: Write minimal and straightforward copy that can be scannable and avoid using unimportant information.

3. Be consistent: Use consistent terminology.

4. Be empathetic: Make sure the copy is understanding and supportive to the users.

When thinking about writing copy for my application, I refer back to my persona and user needs. My persona involves adults seeking to improve their heart health by changing the way they eat. The users will also need to be educated on their heart health, motivated to use the app and achieve their daily goals. The type of language required for my application will be plain English and informative content that is motivational and positive.

In this week’s activity, I review the copy on my frames and evaluate if they fulfil the UX principles. I also check the copy with Grammarly, a tool that scans spelling, punctuation, clarity, and engagement.

Figure 1: Below shows examples of the copy review of my application. The title and description copy in the diet type frame is quite long, and I have updated it to be concise and minimal for the user to interpret better.

In the second example, the allergies and food aversions frame, I have minimalised the heading and changed the word 'aversions' to 'dislikes' to make it simpler and in plain English, for the user to understand.

Service design

“Service design is about designing an experience from a service orientation” (Spillars 2021).

This process involves creating solutions for users at individual touchpoints within the service. Service design is a multidisciplinary field involving marketing, operations and human resources (Teixeira et al. 2012: 363). It is a holistic method that covers interrelated areas and experiences of the whole system and aspects from the physical environment involving the perspectives of customers and service staff. For example, apps, websites, kiosks and store experiences.

Service design aligns the customer and employees' experiences by designing and optimising the operations to enhance the journey (Gibbons 2017a). This can be mapped using a service blueprint, a diagram that presents the connections between the people, components, and processes (Gibbons 2017b). This helps to visualise the journey and identify ways to improve the delivery.

My progress

The module is almost at the end, so I have prioritised my prototype design and functionality. I have started to add my frame interactions making sure I apply constraints and organise by naming my components accordingly.

I started to add some smart animations to my prototype to add some life to the designs. It was challenging to search for a tutorial that allowed me to create an animated progress wheel. This is to show the heart rate is being measured with the phone camera. I attempted one video but found that the instructions were not clear enough for me to follow; therefore, it turned out to be a failure. However, I found a more straightforward video on Youtube that allowed me to create the animation. It is quite time-consuming to research and follow tutorials, but it is a positive learning experience that develops my software skills to produce functional prototypes.

Reflection

Although writing copy is not my strongest skill, it is something I would like to improve further when designing applications and websites. The UX principles are a fantastic guideline to help me review and enhance my copy in my application. Writing copy for your specific target users can be difficult as you may not know what they need. Due to time constraints in the project, I had to improvise on what was the best easily interpretable copy in my application. However, if I had more time, I would like to conduct user research on the terminology that my users will comprehend. This will reveal results and help determine my project's brand language.

My progress with creating animations in Figma has been challenging as there have been difficult times when trying to work out what to animate. I spoke with my tutor, who said I should design it to show the specific happy user journey I want to present. So I have made sure I made the journey as smooth as possible. To improve this, I want to implement many more animations to make my prototype more interactive, fun and pleasant. I will research and use tutorials and apply them in my work. This is an excellent opportunity for me to learn and practice Figma, which is part of my SMART Goals.

References

GIBBONS, Sarah. 2017a. ‘Service Design 101’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/service-design-101/ [accessed 11 Apr 2022].

GIBBONS, Sarah. 2017b. ‘Service Blueprints: Definition’. Nielsen Norman Group [online]. Available at: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/service-blueprints-definition/ [accessed 11 Apr 2022].

KIRUTHIKA, Jay, Souheil KHADDAJ, Darrel GREENHILL and Jarek FRANCIK. 2016. ‘User Experience Design in Web Applications’. In 2016 IEEE Intl Conference on Computational Science and Engineering (CSE) and IEEE Intl Conference on Embedded and Ubiquitous Computing (EUC) and 15th Intl Symposium on Distributed Computing and Applications for Business Engineering (DCABES). 642–6.

SHAW, Jessica. 2021. ‘What Is Content Design, and Why Is It Important?’ Ayima [online]. Available at: https://www.ayima.com/uk/insights/content-marketing/what-is-content-design-and-why-is-it-important.html [accessed 11 Apr 2022].

SPILLARS, Frank. 2021. ‘Service Design’. Interaction Design Foundation [online]. Available at: https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/topics/service-design [accessed 11 Apr 2022].

TEIXEIRA, Jorge et al. 2012. ‘Customer Experience Modeling: From Customer Experience to Service Design’. Journal of Service Management 39, 88.

WINTERS, Sarah. 2017. Content Design. 978-1-9163233-1-5.