Tag: RTF

For this week’s reading response homework, I read pages 13-55 from Interaction Design Best Practices: Mastering Words, Visuals, Space.  This reading featured a lot of valuable information about communication best practices.  One of the things that pointed out immediately was the overlap of lessons I’ve learned in Communication, Public Relations and Advertising courses.  There is an emphasis on what is known in other industries as the MAC triad – message, audience and channel.   The reading emphasized questions that need to be answered in order to strengthen the message delivery.  You have to take into consideration the following questions:

1. Who will read it?
2. When will they read it?
3. What do they need to know
4. What is the format?
5. What is the best tone?

I learned about the 5 Pillars of Interactive Design while reading this passage and why interactivity matters.  Overall, this reading explained how interactivity relates to human connection and behavior. Our goal, as designers is to get the user to inevitability spend less time trying to figure out how to use a site or platform and more time accomplishing the task at hand.  For this reason, clarity should be our top priority.  I think many artists can appreciate an abstract work of art, however, ambiguity is the enemy of good design.  Some best practices for usability that I extracted from this reading assignment that I plan to apply to future blog posts and design projects it to opt for a clean design with less clutter, offer directives with suggested site actions, be clear, concise and specific, use proper titles and the avoid buzzwords.  One of the strongest takeaway messages I received from this passage is that each of us are artists and have creative ability.  The most important thing is focusing in the message you are looking to communicate.