In this intro to our lecture series we went over the crucial question: What exactly is content?
Content can be an image, video, text information etc. In this day and age, almost all of us are content producers. With the rise of social media, posting pictures, blog posts, videos and music are much more accessible, making content creators out of all of us.
“Content Creator” is now a legitimate career many people pursue. According to [wpbeginner.com,](https://www.wpbeginner.com/research/creator-economy-statistics-that-will-blow-you-away/#:~:text=Creator Profile Statistics,-There are more&text=The creator economy has more,more than 1 million followers.) the creator economy has over 162 million content creators.
Content design refers to how content is presented to users; how it appears on screen.
As UX designers we need to be careful of how we manufacture user experiences. Most apps, like TikTok and Instagram, value prolonged usage by their users as it is more profitable. With this being the case, UX designers must intentionally create a UX which makes content consumption addictive. Is this type of content design ethical?
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A good-looking user experience means nothing if it is not functional.
Content design is essential as it provides users with what they need, in a way that is expected and easy to understand. Good content design should be user-focused and aim to make experiences more streamlined. An example of this is how amazon stores card details for a streamlined checkout, or how google passkey stores your passwords to be entered automatically.
Sarah Richards is the head of content design for GOV.UK. She took leadership in re-designing the GOV.UK website to make it more findable, usable and understandable for a wide audience (the entire population of the UK). Richards work is so successful as she and her team have a user-centred approach to content design.
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“Content design is a way of thinking, it’s about using data and evidence to give the audience what they need, at the time they need it and in a way that they expect.” - Sarah Richards. (source)
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User-centred content design requires a lot of research and testing to understand what users need. Sarah Richards demonstrates she understands this in her blogposts regarding the GOV.UK style guide. The website does not use ampersands (&) in body text, with the reasoning being that ‘and’ is easier to understand and skim, and because users with lower literacy levels may not understand the symbol. This takes into account that there are many different demographics that will need to access the government website, and that it should be accessible to all.