Tyrus Manuel, Digitalgov.gov
As DigitalGov focuses on user experience this month it is good to remember one harsh truth: You cannot have a good user experience with bad content.
It is important to keep a “content first” strategy in place during any website redesign or new site development. It is so easy for the various disciplines involved in designing a site to lose sight of the content and of each other.
I’ve been there, and I am sure most of us have. A new, exciting redesign of your site is getting started and the very first thing being discussed is how it’s going to look.
Full disclosure: last week, I referred to a major system redesign I was involved with, and I am already building wireframes. Sorry, dear readers, but I am not perfect either. Content considerations and the users’ needs are driving the development behind those wireframes, but I fear that content is still being slighted.
Without content there is nothing
I’m staring at my paper wireframes as I type this and making a pained expression as I look at the blocks of completely fake content within each of my design elements. I didn’t even use Lorem Ipsum or Bacon Ipsum (a personal favorite), I just used Blokk which creates content that looks like a bad CIA redaction document. Why would I do such a thing? Why did we ever start using Lorem Ipsum in the first place?
Find these answers and more insights at Digitalgov.gov
