Week 2 lecture – Where does content come from?
Week 2’s module consisted of more information about content but this week it was focused more on where it comes from. I have summarised the lecture content and included all of the things that I have learned and what I want to focus on below, as well as what my tasks are for the week.
Where does content come from?
From this lecture I was taught that there is now currently so many content creators in the world- content overload! As a result of this overload from so many creators on so many different platforms I need to decide what is the most important content to show? As designers we need to decipher what content to include and what to use so it’s easy to understand and digest, I need to be good at decided what is really essential?
Where does content come from ?
- clients
- self generated
- wiki
- user generated content
1.When designing systems for clients they can be the ones who provide the content, clients send pdf of text and therefore ask to turn into a website, essentially providing you with the content they want in turn designers turn that into a useable interaction. In order for this to be successful designers should discuss content with clients, they could send you images videos excel spreadsheets.
2.Self generated is content generated by you, e.g. blogs design (branding).
3. Third party sites – sources wiki/google, which aren’t always very reliable and should be double checked thoroughly before using.
4. User generated- which becoming more popular. This includes Twitter, Facebook, tik tok and YouTube. For example YouTube uses AI to see what their users watch and what they enjoy watching, this allows them to create more content which is suited to their users taste and user history.
Instagram post content- they are so detailed, just one post not just content they provide users with lots of other details and features – including profile pic, who likes it and comments, save option, etc. I took to my iPad and began to take a closer look at all of the features that are on a single Instagram post for myself, this exercise helped me realise that instagram is highly efficient and I also did some more examples including Tik Tok and VSCO which are two very popular apps among my age group at the moment.
Instagram features
Tik tok features
VSCO features
This highlights and shows me that so many apps select and choose different content to produce and give their users access too, they are chosen carefully and specific to each app and that app’s main purpose.
Content curation
What is it? –
Content curation is the process of sorting through vast amounts of content in a meaningful way, cherry picking the best and the most important content, this what people need to see and want to see.
How do we organise this content as there is so much ?
Why is content curation valuable?
There is so much content now and we are living in an era of content abundance therefore I need to start thinking about my own content curation, as an indecisive person this will be quite the challenge, however I just need to be clear on what is it that I want to share and what do I need to share with my audience. There is a big difference in what I want to and what I need to share and the winner is- NEED, I need to look at what my users need from my portfolio website and deliver that.
What are the benefits of content curation ?
- become an expert
- easier than creating your own
- show you focus
- network
- more business
- stay informed
Basic principles
I made notes on the basic principles highlighted by Kyle within the lecture-
User and job story
What is a user job story?
A user story is a way of pinning down what you need to do. Basically it is all about asking questions and getting answers with- one question that has three parts.
An example of what a user story is-
User stories are good if you have a lot of users and u need to consider different people and questions and this is a vital technique before starting a project and I can use this technique in every project I take on. In class Kyle gave us a task about user and job story and I will include this task and what I gained and learned from it in a separate blog post as I want to do some more research on it.
User story video –
We then watched a short video about user stories and their purpose and below I have included an image of the key lints that I got from that video.
Visual grammar
Next up was a second lecture all about visual grammar- what it is and how do I make up my own.
What is visual grammar?
All the the things that make up a website or visual product
What was discussed in this lecture
- visual grammar
- language and type
- narrative design
Point line and plane
We talked about point line and plane again and how this makes up literally everything in design. I studied this a lot last year and it was refreshing to see these principles come up again and it is rather mind blowing how these principles stand the test of time and continue to make up everything in design. I want to take a look at this at at a deeper level and research further as it is a topic that is very interesting to me, I will include my research in more blog posts soon.
I took a look at the website – joshworht.com and came across that he does a lot of interesting work which includes a lot of point, line and plane. I really enjoyed his piece entitled ‘Asteroid Close Calls’, as you can see from his work the designs are mainly just dots, it is really simple but I think that it is beautifully executed.
Tips for visual grammar
- Simplify as much as possible – focus on the essentials
- Focus on re-using elements and minimising visual complexity
- CONVENTION
- What can you do with constraints – instagram image size all the same
Good design:
- is simplify as much
- focus of essentials
- easy to use
- standa the test of time – distilled visual grammar
Language and typography
Language so important and identifying language when starting a project is vital!
Questions to ask myself about the langue of my portfolio-
- what is my message ?
- should I use first person narrative?
- what should my voice and tone be? Should it be friendly or more serious ?
More questions to ask myself when it comes to language…
Typography in different portfolios
When designing my portfolio I need to carefully consider the type faced I use. Should I use a serious font or should I go for a more fun and expressive typeface? In order to decide I need to test different one and use them in my prototypes. I want to look at typography as this is an area that I enjoy researching and learning about over the past year and I think it is such an important topic that many people over look but this can make or break a design and project if it is not chosen carefully. Typography is the clothing for words after all!
Things I need to consider with type-
- optimise legibility , through the appropriate bodices of typefaces
- improve accessibly by considering contrast between the foreground and colours
- improve usability through a considered typographic hierarchy
Critical information diagram
Kyle shared this image in the lecture and I thought it would be a beneficial thing to have on my blog to go back to reference. As a young designer it is easy to forget what is critical and what is just nice to have, I need to remember that good content isn’t about how pretty an image is it is about having the right information and content and worry about the outside layer (the look) later on.
Make your own visual grammar
Kyle asked the class to consider their own visual grammar, to do this I will use Figma and include my type choices, colour palettes, buttons and other ui components.
Good examples of this-
Kyle inserted an image of a really good example of a visual grammar piece that is clear and makes sense. I will use this for inspiration when I create my own for my portfolio, this will be very beneficial to do before I begin my project as this will allow me to just use the components I have already made and copy them into my portfolio when I go to build it.
Crazy 8’s task
During the lecture on Thursday Kyle got the class to participate in ‘crazy 8’s’ which is 8 wireframes in 8 minutes solely based on the homepage of our portfolios and what they could possibly look like. This task got me to think quickly and efficiently about the different ways I could style and build my homepage for my portfolio site, I thoroughly enjoyed the rush! I have included my completed crazy 8 task below-
What is my task this week?
My task this week is to create a three page high resolution mockup of my portfolio including a home page, 1 case study and the about/contact page and this should be done using Figma or similar software. I will present my mockups for a small critique next week and I will update my progress this week on my blog.
Reflection
With this lecture I learned a lot about visual grammar and it’s important to website design. I particular enjoyed the exercises we completed in class today including the user and job stories and the crazy 8’s. It was refreshing to take part in these in person compared to online last year and the exercises got me thinking quickly and I am very excited to begin the mockups for my portfolio site for the critique next week!