Why Content is Just as Important as Design
Content and design — from the outside looking-in, there is little connection between the two.
After all, what does writing have to do with design, especially digital design, with all those awesome-looking websites? You wouldn’t think there is much of a relationship between them, but the truth is that design, any design, will be as close to pointless as can be without content.
Indeed, content is so important, that if you want your design to work (read communicate) for the right audience, you need your content to be absolutely spot on.
Content is King is a very common saying, but you normally don’t associate that Kingly feeling with design. After all, design is visual, all about catching the eye and then bringing in the functionality and ease of experience to hook the user.
What doesn’t quite come as clearly, however, is that content is what makes design and the user experience work — without the right content, all you have is a bunch of colors and interactions, not really telling the user anything.
It is vital for the user to know just how important each of those designs are, why the buttons and options and menus are where they are.
Why this page leads to that one, and why that particular content is written on the page.
Without content — the right one that is — the user will be fumbling around your website, wondering what on earth is going on. And before you can do anything, they would have vanished, never to come back again.
Which is why Content is King very much holds its ground in the design world as well.
The fact that content — it doesn’t have to be poetry, but it remains content nonetheless; heck, getting those perfect one-worders might actually be more difficult than writing poetry; but we see that we’re digressing — is almost as important as design (some will say just as or even more) and realizing that there is no design without great content, will give you an infinitely better chance to succeed in what you do.
Of playing with words and melding them with design to form a kind of superhero design, the kind that will make people come back to your product/site over and over again.
That is what we all want, isn’t it?
We want our users to become enamored by the product we put out; and if they do, we get that warm-fuzzy feeling. If the users, somehow, feel like the product isn’t working, the design makes no sense, that feeling quickly turns into a cold, hard one.
In order to avoid that cold feeling, designers need to, absolutely must, put in a lot more effort into their content.
We have a bunch of UX/UI writers in the space, ones who get content, the importance of it and know just where to use what words.
Without the perfect UX writing, all that work you put in on design will prove to be fruitless, because the user will not identify with you, your product or your website.
Communication is key — if you don’t manage to get across what you’re trying to say in an effective manner, the user will have no clue what your product is about; why the website is the way it is. If that is the case, there is no reason for any user to come back to the same product/website again.
And if that happens, all that hard work you put in comes to naught.
Try and keep the writing simple — don’t use technical words or abbreviations. Just because you or your industry friends know what UI or UX means, for instance, doesn’t mean that your user will know it as well. Always look for simpler words and remember the key aspects of good UX writing — make it useful, make it simple and pay respect to the users.
Don’t use big words, technical words or words you feel will get you to the top page of Google. Understand that content is there on the website for a reason — to make the user’s journey easy.
So, next time you go and design, please don’t forget to put just as much time and effort in to content. Send the right message, and everything you worked so hard for will be worth it. Send the wrong one or a confused one, and you will end up scratching your head, and trying to shake off that cold, hard feeling, we all hate.
Come to the warmth, the fuzzy feeling is within reach — all you need to do is give content the respect it deserves.
