ARTICLE SUMMARY: No matter what or who we are designing for context is important. A good design considers the context of the product, audience and business and then designs accordingly.
Consider a simple example, if you write a letter to a friend, you’ll write in a friendly and warm tone. But if you write an article for a newspaper, you will want to consider the whole situation, the facts, the exact numbers, the statements, the audience. So what differs between the 2 of your writings is the context of use.
“CONTEXT IN DESIGN: A KEYSTONE TO UNDERSTANDING USERS” is a look at why context in design is so important
- Context of use can determine the purpose, design and function of a design.
- Context grounds your idea in reality and makes seemingly nebulous problems tangible. Context makes ideas less confusing and allows people to understand where your product/service fits into the world.
- When designing and communicating ideas to non-designers, it’s crucial to paint the picture of the contextual environment to avoid unnecessary questions.
Along with all the components we need to keep track of when building our website we need to keep in mind what the context will be. When it comes to context some of the key considerations we should be looking at are
- Sociocultural context
- Context in UX Patterns/Iconography
- Context in UX Patterns/Iconography
To summarise: When building a product, a designer must keep in mind the context of the product usage and target audience. This will allow them to articulate the information better, solve niche problem statements and enable people from diverse backgrounds to use and enjoy it.
Let us know what you think in the comments.
