This week focussed on Content Design and rather than look at examples of good content design, I wanted to explore some of the more psychological and process ideas related to content design.
I’ve started reading Daniel Kahneman’s “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and have found it incredibly insightful into the core ideas of content design. The main idea of the book focuses on how the brain can be split into 2 systems; System 1 - the fast half that processes information; and; System 2 - the lazy half that acts on the processed information. Through this model Kahneman goes on to break down the idea of “Heuristics” and why they are so important to making humans process information properly.
Due to System 2 following the easiest evaluation of System 1, humans are most likely to follow a narrative (Heuristic) rather than follow logic and probability. The example given is an experiment where students were asked whether an imaginary young woman named Linda, who is single, outspoken and very bright, and who, as a student, was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, was more probably a bank teller or a feminist bank teller. The majority of the candidates answered that she was more likely a feminist bank teller, which was in fact less probable given it had an extra variable. They chose this not because it was actually more probable, but because it fitted the narrative of the character better. This happened because the question was made intentionally difficult and confusing, as most questions like this would relate to narrative, not probability, and so System 1 jumped to the answer based on what they expected with System 2 lazily accepting this rather than challenging the evaluation.
This was really interesting to me as it reveals a lot about how people expect to be able to interact with things. It comes back to ideas of simplicity and conventional design and making things easy for the user, and while I have thought about these ideas before, reading this book has really helped me to understand them properly. It’s helped me to truly understand the importance of heuristics and how they are the primary thing the user will base their choices on, so they need to work for the user. Previously I’ve thought that heuristics are important but more in a subsidiary way, but now I really understand how they are truly the core of design and are actually the biggest influence over how people think and make choices.
When looking at content design, it can be easy to fall into the trap of treating what you’re designing as a self-contained product, rather than designing a system. When the idea of designing a system comes up, I usually think of design systems and guidelines, however, I wanted to look at the concept of designing with the intent of creating a system. To do this I spent some time reading GOV.uk’s Government Design Principles, as I thought this would be a good resource due to the highly effective and design for all systems that GOV.uk has in place.
One of the ideas in the GDP which I thought was really interesting was the idea of “Do Less”. While this may sound like laziness, it’s actually a way of ensuring consistency throughout all areas of the GDP’s reach. It’s the idea of sustainable design and making sure things are reusable and are being reused rather than reinventing the wheel every time something is needed. By working this way, you cut down on the unnecessary parts of design systems and ensure consistency throughout, reducing the system to an “irreducible core”. This a really interesting idea as there was so much focus on it. I had been aware before of the benefits of creating reusable systems for design, but the way it is discussed here makes it far more of a crucial step to ensure the efficiency of the company's design.
Another idea from GDP which I found interesting relates to the last point, which is to “Be Consistent, Not Uniform”. This is an evolution of the “Do Less” idea in that it still encourages reusability and sustainable design, but also advocates for situational design. I think this is interesting because it proposes that there needs to be a balance between reusable and sustainable design and design that fits a purpose. It’s about finding solutions that follow conventions as far as possible, but still having the confidence to introduce unique parts into the design to find a solution perfect for that problem. I think this is especially important for me to consider in this project, as this is the realest project I’ve done so far. Finding a balance between conventional and unconventional design will be crucial to ensuring a successful project which acts as a fully realised solution to the problem I’m trying to solve.
Looking at content design through psychological and principle ideas has been really interesting and useful as it’s allowed me to think about the topic in a new way and consider the wider picture of how it works. I feel I’ve learnt a lot and have a new understanding of some ideas I had come across before which I think will benefit my project massively.