How Snackable Content is Going to Power Your Future User Experience

The User Experience (UX) Needs to Continually Evolve

There’s no doubt that snackable content is the way of the future. According to a study by Microsoft in 2015, people now have an attention span of eight seconds – down from 12 seconds in 2000. Who knows how short attention spans will be five years from now, or even next year! Social media fuels the fire - so to speak - for the decline, allowing people to absorb information quickly, in tiny snippets.
This bite-sized revolution is now spreading into all types of digital content. In fact, it is going to change the entire user experience (UX) as we know it.

What is Snackable Content?

We’ve talked about snackable content before. It’s basically content that has been pared down so that it can be ingested quickly and easily. It’s accessible, relevant, and enlightening. It’s also based on the idea that users are going to read it when the right situation presents itself, which means that it needs to contain the right information for the right circumstance.

Enter the UX.

Impatience is changing the way designers are arranging content flows. Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, developers are now tackling customized digital journeys for users.
The new UX needs to:

• Account for different delivery methods. Not only does your website need to be responsive, but it also needs to keep your omnichannel marketing strategy in mind. To maintain a consistent brand, your UX needs to uniform – whether a customer is in your store, watching a television commercial about your products or services, or looking at one of your ads in a local newspaper. Can customers access the same information on your website as they can in the store?
• Be location-specific. Metadata is paving the way for more customized content experiences. With meaningful classifications and characteristics, snackable content can be tagged based on a particular location or other unique attributes. This means that users will only see content that is relevant to them, based on what they are searching for and where they are located.
• Know the context. Again, metadata is key here, but machine learning is also an important factor. As machine learning improves and devices are connected through the Internet of Things (IoT), the UX can be shaped based on a user’s individual preferences and behavioral patterns.

How will It Work?

To redefine the UX, webpages will soon become template-driven. Pieces of snackable content will be displayed based on each user's journey. Part of this UX will be based on journey mapping, where web developers take the various levels of interaction a customer has with your company into account. The other parts will be derived from technological breakthroughs in machine learning and artificial intelligence – many of which we haven’t even heard of yet.

One thing is certain: keep your content short, sweet, and snackable. Before you know it, that content will be personalizing your customer’s UX and impacting his or her journey on your website. Searching and scrolling will be as foreign to the UX one day as rewinding a VHS tape is to the Generation Z crowd.

Is your content ready?