Layering: Here’s How to Do It
You’ve all seen this image, right?
It’s a bloody solid reflection of online disclosures and consumer contracts today. We know people don’t engage with agreements, regardless of what they say in attitudinal research (just go and check your behavioural event logs). It’s been argued that organisations deliberately make this whole process hard. They cultivate our apathy and digital resignation.
The net result is that disclosures and contracts negatively contribute to the customer experience. They reinforce information asymmetry and resulting power imbalances. They erode trust.
All of this is why Legal Design, Contract Design and Better Disclosure are starting to gain popularity. We recognise there’s a problem. And fortunately, a bunch of awesome people around the world have decided it’s time to start tackling it.
If you’re familiar with our Better Disclosure Canvas, you’ll know that we focus on ‘Breaking components down and utilising layering technique”. This is Better Disclosure Consideration Area 2. And it’s one of the areas of Better Disclosure that has pretty conflicting and/or limited evidence.
In our opinion, there’s a common misconception surrounding layering. We often hear people referring to layering and Accordion Menu style click interactions interchangeably.
You see this pattern used frequently for FAQs. It might work in certain situations (when trying to reserve ‘real estate’ for instance), but it isn’t the entire scope of layering. This misconception is a mistake. It limits the scope of layering techniques unnecessarily. It fails to account for the many variables that (*might) impact effective layering.
*You never know until you put it to the test…
When we talk about, “breaking things down”, what we mean is breaking down a disclosure, contract or agreement into its component parts. We’re basically making sense of the information so we can then prioritise what matters most. This is an information design or information architecture practice. It’s pretty much standard practice.
When we talk about “layering”, we’re talking about making the most important information prominent. In many cases, this means that the primary interaction (the default setting as it were) is navigation through prioritised information. For those who seek more information, they have the ability to dive deeper with a click, scroll or whatever ‘familiar’ interaction performs best in testing.
This week’s Here’s How To video goes into much more depth on this very topic.
Before signing off, it’s important to touch on the real why behind this: Engaging with some information — particularly the most important elements — is better than engaging with none. We’re designing ‘valuable friction’ here.
Some people will contest this because they’re allergic to friction (another issue entirely). If this is you, joining the discussion. Share your perspective. We open and encourage us to do the same. The more of us sharing and learning the better.
Until next time.
