MY CONTENT DESIGN JOURNEY
Design content to not make people think, or to allow slow thinking?
My year as a content designer for adult social care has tested to breaking point a content design maxim: to meet needs quickly. We can design differently where slow consideration is required.
How can content help people when they are not looking for it? When they have no idea what is available or the words used? I’ve been grappling with this as a content designer in adult social care.
Users may not act on needs
I first listened to both service professionals and service users for the Dorset Council project.
I found the professionals want to help people make small, early changes. An alarm to get help quickly, or even just a conversation.
Most people finding our site, however, were looking for major changes: stairlifts and care homes.
Helping people who are not looking for help
Content alone cannot help people if they do not look for help.
People caring for someone in their life may not think about their own needs. To give them useful content requires a content strategy, using multiple channels.
So do content designers, with our focus on ‘pull content’ stand aside for professionals creating ‘push content’? Not at all. Content design can help meet people halfway, I have learnt.
Going beyond ‘don’t make me think’
Gov.uk standard patterns are great for helping people quickly do what they have to do. But sometimes content is required for more than that.
Content to allow them to explore what else might be useful.
What are these users trying to do?
Task-orientated content can only let users do ‘jobs-to-be-done’.
We cannot design content around actions we wish people would do. Perhaps not even with a marketing campaign — paid advertising also works better with what is already on people’s minds.
We must constantly remind ourselves of what people are thinking about.
When to design for slower progress
If people’s go-to thought is ‘care homes,’ we need content on that. But why not alongside alternatives in ‘choosing care’ content?
This might be making people think. But people need to give more consideration to a care home place than a pothole report. As an interviewee in the Discovery spelt out: “I wanted the whole journey laid out for me.”
She did not only want to get one thing done, the scenario we often cater for. She wanted to know what to do after that (and that), too.
Consider patterns for exploration
This realisation of the need to design for the speed people are going at led me to consider patterns I am wary of.
If a user is unsure what they need or about a process, providing the headlines of additional content, with the full content hidden, may be helpful. This may be an elegant way to give them both what they are looking for and alternatives or next steps.*
My interviewee wanted to “know my options without going through the entire internet”.
So let’s test if this way of serving up additional content would help people in her situation (and if it works for everyone).
Make people think
A second potential tool for users in exploratory mode is a ‘related article’ link.
Often, there are too many links to wade through. I add to users’ cognitive burden cautiously to not overwhelm and prompt them to leave.
However, if we know what people are trying to do, and also know they may not find something else that may help, I’d consider a related article.
Our contact centre calls suggest that, while carers may shun support, they might get their loved one’s care needs looked at. They are more likely to look for benefits than a break, Analytics indicate.
These could be scenarios to consider related articles links. Tech firms also encourage users to explore other options they haven’t thought about.
Always based on the scenario
As with all content design decisions, we work with hypotheses, based on our knowledge of users. We need to be ready to be proved wrong.
That includes questioning content design maxims — for a service with long processes people have low knowledge of, at least.
Sometimes, we design so that people get things done fast. At other times, we need to make people stop, and think.
I’d love to get your response! If this was useful, follow my content design journey.
*The Gov.uk tasklist might be a better way of hiding content than an accordion in this scenario. But this pattern is experimental and not yet available on the organisation’s Content Management System.
