This lecture covered content design and how it is imperative that designers consider how to write content for their users due to how people read. The content we covered today was familiar to me because UXD 301 in the previous semester was all about content design, and I have learned a lot of valuable things from it. Our tutor showed us a really good example of content design, which is the https://www.gov.uk/bank-holidays website which displays how well the content is structured.
A journey map is a chart that shows the steps that a user goes through when interacting with a product like buying something online or using an app. It helps designers understand what the user is feeling, doing, and thinking at each stage of their experience.
A journey map is used to better understand a user’s experience when interacting with a product, this method allows them to find pain points which are normally described as frustrations or problems that need to be worked on.
I find this very useful as I like to troubleshoot. I feel as though this can be applied to big scaled projects as it can be time consuming.
From what I already know people don’t actually read every word they see, they more so scan the screen. People scan content in an F shape.
Upon doing some research on this I uncovered that people skim over words looking for keywords that’ll help them understand the context of what they're reading. Eye tracking studies indicate that people often scan in an F shape by reading the first line completely and as they go down the paragraph they read less of it. Henceforth its best to have short and concise content as long paragraphs get skipped due to boredom; people are busy and want fast answers, if they don't find what they need fast enough they will quit reading the content.
This study helps designers understand and know what needs to be done in order to create engaging content.