Another way to think about UX design and content

Another article of mine was published in Vanguard UX, which houses some of the latest thinking on user experience. For anyone not familiar with this profession, I thought I’d take the opportunity to briefly define what we mean by the term “user experience” (abbreviated UX), including its subfields of UX design and content. I’ll also give a preview of the main argument in my article, which looks at the design-content relationship in UX in terms of fast vs. slow thinking.

User experience

Simply put, user experience (UX) refers to how we interact with products, services, or technologies. As the name implies, it’s the way we experience something while we use it. In other words, UX studies how well this experience can meet the needs of an end user.

When the experience of a product, service, or technology meets a user’s needs, it’s often a sign of high-quality UX. But when that experience doesn’t meet a user’s needs, it may be due to low-quality UX. How would we know if the UX of a product, service, or technology is high quality or low quality? To help answer this question, let’s break it down according to two subfields of UX.

UX design and content

UX includes both design and content. High-quality UX design (sometimes known as user-centered design) refers to products, services, or technologies—like app or web interfaces—that look and feel user friendly. High-quality UX content refers to clearly written and meaningful information—such as menus, headings, and body text on an application or website—that’s useful and usable.

Therefore, when design and content work together to make high-quality UX, they create user-friendly designs that communicate useful, usable content. For example, consider these two kinds of scenarios:

• At one time or another, you probably tried looking up something using an app or website. Maybe you needed to find some medical facts or financial news. Unfortunately, both the interface and the information were so confusing, you couldn’t really find what you were searching for. That’s a sign of low-quality UX design and content.
• In contrast, maybe there was a time you needed to shop online. And perhaps the app or website had such an intuitive interface with clearly written instructions and information, you could hardly believe online shopping was so easy. That’s a sign of high-quality UX design and content.

Fast and slow thought in design and content

Obviously, a big part of UX is ensuring that design and content work together successfully. There are many ways to think about this design-content relationship. However, one way I like to think about it is by drawing on two psychological principles: fast and slow thought.

• Fast thought (also known as intuition) refers to thinking that’s automatic. It’s what helps us make decisions and reach conclusions quickly, such as judging a situation at first glance.
• Slow thought (also known as reason) refers to thinking that’s reflective. It’s what helps us analyze information carefully, allowing us, for instance, to think things through methodically or rationally.

Drawing upon these two modes of thought, I suggest it’s possible to think about UX design and content in the following way.

• UX design leverages fast thought by creating user-friendly products, services, or technologies, including interfaces that look and feel intuitive.
• UX content leverages slow thought by making it easy to read through information clearly, which allows us to also think about it rationally.

Fast and slow thought in app and website design

So, a well-designed app or website should look and feel intuitive, thereby leveraging fast thought. That way, users won’t have to think too hard about how to use the interface.

At the same time, the goal of UX is not necessarily to prevent people from thinking. It’s just that UX should help people think about the information they came for, not the interface they’re using to find that information. And that’s where clearly written content comes in, thus leveraging slow thought. In my article, I use the following analogy to convey this idea:

UX is like a vehicle that helps users drive their though processes. Design is the accelerator, speeding up their thoughts. Content is the breaks, slowing down their thoughts.

For the details and deeper argument about this design-content relationship in UX, feel free to check out the full article:

Driving your UX vehicle: accelerate with design, brake with content