IDENTIFY COMMUNICATION DESIGN IN CONTEXT

One of the many things that have recently changed in design is the opportunity to expand from complete analog to a digital and mix media. What mainly comes to mind is the expansion of advertisement and the additional complexity that can be found when searching the web. While another aspect to examine is common everyday thing that can be simplified on the web. Such an example is Bills. Recently there has been a shift from paper billing to online billing. Companies such as Direct TV, AT&T, and many others are even offering incentives for those who choose to do online billing. Here are examples of why the design of paper billing is ineffective and how those issues are resolved in the design of online billing sites.

When reading a bill on paper, there is almost no hierarchy in design.  What the consumer wants is the amount they actually must pay. By including additional information, the main source of information becomes lost. Last semester for a class we had to examine heating bills, and the break down for the amount of energy v. cost used monthly. What can be concluded from that is how un-user friendly it is.  The lack of differentiating the fonts or the sizes of the numbers can be a design issue that could be a quick fix. The adaptation of graphs without complete description is another issue in paper billing.

What is resolved about this is online billing. It becomes almost pedagogical in how it is designed to be a step-by-step process. Where information that the user does not find important can easily be looked over, and likewise the amount of the bill is highlighted and can be shown in an additional window. The ability to also click the “pay now” and to save multiple account numbers is also a time saving step for many users.