I’ve transitioned to a different team on the project I am on right now, away from my current passion around mobile into a more traditional design challenge: product presentment and user engagement. In less pretentious words… selling stuff. The group I have joined is as sharp as a razor, and I have very little to add to the conversation – they are on top of things and I am doing my best to not get in the way or break what is already working. I can bring one valuable perspective to the conversation, however, one I’ll share here.
Content. It’s about the content.
You can design the most elegant engaging and interactive UI ever, but if the information that it contains is muddled or inappropriate or in the wrong tone of voice… well, you have created a beautiful silver challis and filled it with cat food (not even GOOD cat food)… and then offered the dish to your users.
Sounds appetizing? Of course not. As a communicator first, and a designer second (“to thine own self be true,” as the Bard eternally states) I know how important content is. So, for those designers who think that all the world’s problems can be solved if we just create a snazzy enough UI… as few thoughts.
Be clear about the point you are making. If you are presenting product information, what is your main thesis? What problem are you trying to solve? What information is you trying to convey? Strip away all the crap, the excess that the stakeholders want you to add. Be pure and true.
Explain, simply. Why should anyone decide that what you are selling is something you should buy? Tell them, in a way that your 6 year old can understand. This is not an inditement of the intellectual capacity of the general populace, but a reflection of the increasingly narrow attention spans of the modern adult. We are rushed, distracted – a simple message gets through the noise a lot more than a complicated one. And speaking of your readers…
Know your audience. If you are presenting information in a UI to users who are a lot more savvy about technology than the typical Joe, then you can use terms that said typical Joe may not recognize. Simple and clear does not mean generic and homogenized.
Finally, pay attention to tone of voice. HOW you frame your content is just as important as what you say. I was involved in a project redesigning a Kiosk and that design failed not because the UI did not let the users do what they needed to, but because the tone of voice was too conversational and familiar for the users of the end system. It was jovial, and completely wrong. Tone of voice is a crucial part of the holistic user experience.
Now, to go apply some of these lessons to my day job…