One of the most important foundations of our UXD practice is what we call the UXD Stack. The Stack is the framework that we use to assess all incoming projects. The five tenents in The Stack are:
Primary Goal: What business goal are we trying to achieve?
Audience: What do we need to achieve the goal?
Content: What content and functionality are required for the audience to achieve their goals?
Context: What non-verbal queues will make the message more credible?
Media/Technology: How is the message technically presented?
Context is the bridge between the users and how they interact with the content of the site. Context is one of the primary elements of the site design that can make or break a design. Establishing a consistent and user-centric context is key to creating a site that will relate to the users and likewise make it successful.
As many of those who know me can attest I am a lover of cartooning. I started cartooning at a young age and started my first published cartoon in high school. My first cartoon strip was entitled "Dr. Ratlab & Ratty"-basically the strip involved Dr. Ratlab finding new and clever ways to blow-up Ratty but in true comic nature Ratty always survived to be blown-again. I continued cartooning in college with editorial comics for the Kentucky Kernel (University of Kentucky) and the North Texan (niversity of North Texas). Most of my work was either political in nature or strip. My final strip was entitled "The Crayon People"-after a reference that Christopher Lloyd made where he stated he loved getting fan mail from those who wrote in crayon. None the less one of the real lessons I learned in writing for strips was context.
I am a huge fan of the comic artist Scott McCloud, and in reading one of his posts the other day I was introduced to two strips that really blew me away: 3eanuts and Garfield Minus Garfield. In both of these strips the presenter removes an important part of the original strip. It is amazing. In 3eanuts the final frame is removed and in Garfield Minus Garfield, Garfield is removed. These simple edits change the entire context of the strips and in my opinion make them even more interesting.