Dan Olsavsky's Blog

The Unification of Content and Design:
to Tell a Story and Hold a Conversation

We each design with our own style, and for the most part, we all know what works and why. We know how to
visualy captivate our users and answer the many questions they may have. However, websites are not only about
communicating visually using graphics but, also verbally, through text. This is what I will refer to as the voice of the website.

"Ideally, you should work with a writer from day 1, to design the voice of the copy in conjunction with the
visual language of the design" - Bronwyn Jones (web writer)

Our writers have an entire conversation with the client, about the tone and language
that will be used on the website. However, in our design calls, we barely scratch that surface. One thing that we
can do to help understand the overall tone of the website is to ask the writer for a brief synopsis of their phone call with the client
. If time does not allow, we can at least read some of the content, such as the home page and the about us page.

Once we have a better idea of what the website is saying and in what tone, this can help us create a better website. By asking the right
questions in the design call, we can gather a lot of information about our target demographic. Once we have this information we can start to
give a website a personality and a voice.

One of the best ways to give a website this said personality and voice is to give yourself a new/different persona. Pretend that you are the
desired user. Ask yourself questions like, what do I want to know, where can I find the information, does this site hold my interest, does it speak to me, does it make me want to
engage in a conversation? Then, ask yourself what will your character react to/respond to?

Side note:I think that sometimes we create a graphic that we like (collectively as the younger demographic) and forget who we are really creating these graphics for.

You can further define your new persona by becoming more realistic. For example, maybe you are a single mother, perhaps a busy perfessional with
several children in highschool. You barely have the time to grab a cup of coffee on your lunch break, let alone enough time to find an aesthetic dentist to fix your teeth
(so you can impress your sons hockey coach). You have a very limited amount of time to shop for a doctor online and you can only afford to spend a
few mineuts on each website you surf to.

Now, ask yourself again, what do I want to know, where do I find it, does this site hold my interest, does it speak to me, does it make me want to
engage in a conversation?

You want ot give your website a voice and personnality so that you users have something to identify with. You already have a: plan, color palette, font, logo, theme, usable interface, now bring it all
together with the sites content to creat a personality. Speak to your target demographic, not at them, become their peer.

Once you are their peer, users will come back to you for more advise and information, it's worth spending some time on.

In addition, get other peoples feedback, outside of our department. Dan, LASIK... just one opinion but it counts.

In conclusion, to summarize:

-Know the demographic
-Study the demographic
-Think like the demographic
-Know the tone and the language of the content
-Tell the story as you are their peer
-Engage your users in conversation

- Dan Olsavsky