Order is Always More Important than Action in Design

Summary

Summarized wtih ChatGPT

Before users can meaningfully act, they must understand — a principle our metrics-obsessed design culture has forgotten.

Today’s metrics-obsessed design culture is too fixated on action. Clicks, conversions, and other easily quantified metrics have become our purpose. We’re so focused on outcomes that we’ve lost sight of what makes them valuable and what even makes them possible in the first place: order and understanding.

The primary function of design is not to prompt action. It’s to bring form to intent through order: arranging and prioritizing information so that those who encounter it can see it, perceive it, and understand it.

Why has action become our focus? Simple: it’s easier to measure than understanding. We can track how many people clicked a button but not how many people grasped the meaning behind it. We can measure time spent on a page but not comprehension gained during that time. And so, following the path of least resistance, we’ve collectively decided that what’s easy to measure must be what’s most important to optimize, leaving action metrics the only means by which the success of design is determined.

This is backward. Action without understanding is merely manipulation — a short-term victory that creates long-term problems. Users who take actions without fully comprehending why become confused, frustrated, and ultimately distrustful of both the design and the organization behind it. A dirty little secret of action metrics is how often the success signal — a button click or a form submission — is immediately followed by a meandering session of actions that obviously signals confusion and possibly even regret. Often, confusion is easier to perceive from session data than much else.

Even when action is an appropriate goal, it’s not a guaranteed outcome. Information can be perfectly clear and remain unpersuasive because persuasion is not entirely within the designer’s control. Information is at its most persuasive when it is (1) cle…

Highlights from Article

The primary function of design is not to prompt action. It’s to bring form to intent through order: arranging and prioritizing information so that those who encounter it can see it, perceive it, and understand it.

• Good design is clear before or converts

Users who take actions without fully comprehending why become confused, frustrated, and ultimately distrustful of both the design and the organization behind it.

we would invest more in information architecture and content strategy — the disciplines most directly concerned with creating meaningful order.

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