Guiding Customer Engagement with Information Design

8/26/2024 Tiffany Goehring

At its most basic, design is how graphic elements — like images, shapes, and colors — combine with text to create a pleasing and readable composition or form. Generally, design can serve both a functional and an aesthetic purpose. 

Information design, however, takes a distinct approach that focuses not only on a message’s content but also on the intended reader or user and its environment. The goal: Create effective and impactful communication that satisfies the information needs of the intended recipient at a diverse range of levels. 

With businesses across all industries seeking to engage consumers and potential customers, information design can play a crucial role in developing an organization’s communication and outreach strategies. 

The benefits of information design

Information design is a multidisciplinary field that combines elements of communication design, data visualization, and user-centered design to make complex data accessible, usable, and meaningful. It boasts a range of benefits that it can bring to a project, including:

• Enhanced user understanding: By simplifying complex information, information design can boost rapid comprehension
• Improved decision-making: Breaking down complicated concepts into easily understood bits and spotlighting key insights can enable a user to make more informed decisions
• Increased engagement: Generating data presentations that are attention-grabbing can result in higher user engagement
• Accessibility: Because information design factors in the abilities and learning styles of various users, it enhances the accessibility of information and the overall product

Information design also takes into account two differing approaches to design in general: human-centered design and user-centered design.

Human-centered design, as the term suggests, strives to appeal to all people, regardless of demographics or other specific factors. With a goal to attract as broad an audience as possible, it can be applied to graphic design as well as product design, package design, web design, and other design variations. 

User-centered design, on the other hand, is aiming at a specific, intended audience. While it can be applied to all the various types of design, a user-centered design might focus on specific demographics, characteristics, or behaviors. In a business setting, a user-centered design might be targeting a particular industry or user of a specific product type. 

While both human-centered and user-centered design can certainly influence sales, a user-centered design will be more likely to increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and lead to higher customer retention rates.  

CX, UX, and the customer journey

Information design integrates with two additional communication concepts — user experience (UX) and customer experience (CX). Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they actually indicate two separate approaches and considerations:

• UX focuses on a customer’s interaction with a specific brand product or service
• CX encompasses all the possible interactions with the brand overall

Typically, UX is utilized in digital channels — websites, mobile apps, etc. — and is often concerned with the usability of or with a specific product, but is applicable to business communications as well. Nearly a third of consumers (31%) believe that businesses should focus on an engaging user experience when designing a website, according to a report from Top Design Firms. 

CX, on the other hand, is the end-to-end experience or overall brand perception someone has with a company, and it includes digital as well as non-digital channels: websites and apps, advertisements, emails, marketing, customer service, and much more. 

User experience and customer experience come together when a brand considers the overall customer journey. It’s a common information design practice to inquire about materials and how they’re used when redesigning either printed or digital business communications. 

Nearly three-quarters of consumers (73%) point to the customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decision, according to PwC’s "Experience is Everything" report. In addition, 42% of consumers say they would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience, and 65% indicate that they find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.

A critical marketing component

User experience is, of course, a component of the overall customer experience. Importantly, information design can be key in guiding and influencing both — contributing to a company’s marketing efforts in three additional ways:

• Explaining and clarifying your message: As noted earlier, information design can greatly simplify information — through the use of colorful graphics, diagrams, charts, and other elements. 
• Amplifying SEO: Infographics like charts, diagrams, and maps can boost a website’s search engine optimization (SEO). 
• Increasing content shareability: Because infographics are both informative and visually interesting, they’re eminently shareable on social media, which can lead to more eyeballs on an organization’s message. 

Much more than just a pretty picture, information design can be a critical part of your company’s marketing strategy, ensuring that your message is easily understood — and then acted upon.
 

RRD’s Information Design Services provides design strategies and solutions for better, clearer communications. For additional information, contact Tiffany Goehring, Creative Supervisor Business Communications Solutions, RRD at tiffany.m.goehring@rrd.com.