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What's the Point of Innovation? [Good Design #2]

Posted: 29 Sep 2011 07:03 AM PDT

My last post discussed Dieter Rams's 10 principles of good design and why good design is important for content writing. Over the next 10 posts I'll explore each of the principles. We'll look at what good design means for content writing and technical writing.

First, some thoughts about what good design is not. Good design isn't cool graphics or a sleek look. Design in this context means form that follows function. It describes the "shape" of your content—all the visual aspects of it, including media format, layout and structure, style and tone, typography, flow, and more. It speaks to usability and user experience.

So let's look at the first principle of good design.

Good design is innovative. The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Get Innovative! Maybe.

In the earliest days of the Web, documents were on one page—often, a very long one that required lots of scrolling. Then HTML came along and introduced the <a> tag, and suddenly you could link several short pages instead of having one long one. As technology grew, so did capabilities for websites, and multimedia was introduced through Flash and MIDI files. Later, DHTML and Java script were introduced, and the web became interactive—elements like expanding text created opportunities for web content and online help. Today, HTML5 is rolling out, with new capabilities that will allow content writers to do new things with mobile devices and web pages. As technology advances, so do the opportunities to be innovative in designing content.

Each of these evolving technologies has provided opportunities for innovative design. The best designs made it easier to use the web, find help, or watch video demos instead of reading procedures.

But just because an innovative design is possible, that doesn't mean it should be used. Design for its own sake only gets in the way of a positive user experience. That's why website splash pages have become so widely detested, and why you'll never see a bubble mouse trail again (except perhaps on MySpace). While it might impress your customers to show off a new design feature, the novelty will quickly wear off; if the design doesn't actually yield greater usability or create better understanding, your customers will tire of it and become resentful that you weren't more thoughtful of their needs.

But when innovative design improves a user's experience, it should be seriously considered. I've already mentioned collapsing/expanding text on web pages. This advancement allowed technical writers to create sleeker, crisper online help topics. Nonessential information could be hidden, but still easily available to users; they could dig deeper without navigating away from the topic.

How Then Shall We Design?

The challenge for content writers and technical writers is threefold:

Stay current on developing technologies. This is easier said than done, since you never know which technology will lead to new design possibilities. The key is to keep your eyes open and be always learning from a wide variety of sources.
Find innovative ways to apply new capabilities in content creation. This involves practicing disciplines that develop your creativity. Allow yourself to be bored. Cut out stuff that produces a distracted life. Keep asking foundational questions like Why and What If. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" is a lie—everything is broken at some level, in some way.
Differentiate good design from bad design. This is tricky, because an innovation can be a good design in one context but horrible in another. QR codes are an example of an overused innovation that has a limited value. In some contexts, it's clever and helpful; in others, it's just clever-ish and trendy.

Technology is always evolving, and with it come new opportunities to improve content design. It is the task of content writers and technical writers to keep pushing the envelope—not for the sake of innovation itself, but for the sake of our readers. Innovative design is only good when it improves the user’s experience.

Photo credit: Shahram Sharif

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