Linknote — — 96 words

Content design — User experience

Content strategy: Beware the chatty tone of voice — Lauren Ellis — Humanising Technology Blog

"Beware the chatty brand voice"

The perils of using an overly-familiar tone of voice in your copy. There are some cracking examples here of support content that prioritises daft quips over getting to the point.

You’ve ordered a package and you want to know how long delivery will take. It’s a straight forward question, so you would expect to find out quickly and easily. What you don’t need is a couple lines of heavily branded content standing between you and your answer. You just want to know how long the delivery will take…

Users are task-led and time-poor.

Linknote — — 125 words

Content design — Human-centred approaches — User experience — Web

Work:

Join our team as a Content Designer — Website and Communications Blog

View of Edinburgh Castle from our office

Come and work with our team!

We are looking for three experienced Content Designers to join the University of Edinburgh’s Website and Communications team as we embark on major projects to launch our new web publishing platform and services.

If you’re passionate about using evidence-based approaches to create great content that meets users’ needs, we want to hear from you.

There are three positions available. [Find out more in the blog post](https://blogs.ed.ac.uk/website-communications/join-our-team-as-a-content-designer/). If you have any questions, just get in touch with me.

For my personal view on what it’s like working with the University of Edinburgh, check out my previous blog post: [Why I value working in user experience in higher education](https://duncanstephen.net/why-i-value-working-in-user-experience-in-higher-education/).

Linknote — — 77 words

Human-centred approaches

There is no design system — Jina Anne — 24 ways

Quote from Jina Anne: "In what ways can we improve our collaboration, remove any proverbial gaps between design and engineering (not just bridge them), and have more meaningful conversations around the work we do?"

Why a design system should not be thought of as a Thing like a style guide, but in fact is all about building a community.

I have to tell you: a lot of the time that I’m working in design systems, I’m not even touching a design tool. Or coding. Rather, it’s a lot of people-focused work: Reviewing. Advising. Organizing. Coordinating. Triaging. Educating. Supporting. That’s a lot of invisible systems work right there.

Linknote — — 92 words

Human-centred approaches — Media — User experience

Journalism and design: Building solutions to our greatest challenges — Catherine Woodiwiss — Modernist Studio

A person looking at a sea creature in an aquarium

An exploration of the similarities and differences between journalism and design, and how the two disciplines can support each other.

Like journalists, designers research human behaviour, through interview and observation, in an attempt to understand complex problems…

But where journalists focus on content, designers focus on experience — what and who the content is for, how it’s delivered, and how behaviour may change as a result. And where journalists synthesise these insights to tell stories, designers push into making solutions.

See also: The journalism and user research relationship — Gregg Bernstein — Vox Product

Linknote — — 175 words

Current affairs — Human-centred approaches — Music

Dutch “singing road” silenced after villagers complain: “I’m going nuts” — Palko Karasz and Yonette Joseph — The New York Times

A car driving over the musical rumble strips

This must be the most spurious “road safety” feature ever conceived.

A Dutch town decided to install rumble strips that are set at certain frequencies so that cars “play” the regional anthem as they drive over them.

This article focuses on the fact that this feature is driving residents crazy as they repeatedly have to hear this raspy version of the same melody all day (and night) long.

But surely the spurious justification is more deserving of ire.

Local officials hoped the strips would encourage drivers to stick to the speed limit.

Because, apparently, the melody would only play when drivers are driving at the right speed. Except, as officials concede later in the article, that’s not even true. If you drive at a different speed, the melody still plays — just at a different speed. Perhaps drivers may even speed up just to end the din more quickly.

What a terrible idea!

This article also contains a brilliant video from Tom Scott demonstrating an even more disastrous version of the same idea, in California.

Linknote — — 56 words

Accessibility — Business — Human-centred approaches

Accessible polling cards: Keeping it low-tech — Lizzie Cass-Maran — Website and Communications Blog

Polling cards of different colours and shapes

How do you make participation in workshops and training sessions as accessible as possible? My colleague Lizzie Cass-Maran has created these low-tech voting cards (using letters, colours and shapes to include as many people as possible) that are easy to make yourself — and a lot less fiddly than some of the technology solutions out there.

Linknote — — 101 words

Business — Content design — Human-centred approaches — Technology

The complex task of simplicity — Paul Taylor

Sainsbury's Basics food packaging - washing powder, flower, canned tomatoes

It is human nature to add things, making them more complex. This feels like you’re doing something, but actually you’re probably making the situation worse.

We see this in web design. People like adding pages to their websites because it feels productive. But actually, the most effective websites are the ones with fewer, simpler pages.

The same can be true for any design, including the way we structure our work.

We often anchor around the wrong thing. That’s why some big institutions have no chance — they are hit by random plans and transformations rather than anchoring around purpose and iteration.