“Which CAKE pathway course should I take?”, CAKE

I offer comprehensive, introductory pathway courses into user-centred design and content design. Yesterday someone asked me a great question about them:

“What is the main difference between the two pathway courses? Does the content overlap or would it be helpful to do both? My interest is in accessibility, particularly writing for neurodivergent audiences.”

Here’s my response.

The quick answer

In summary, I’d say it would be helpful to do both. They each cover different aspects, with user-centred design as the umbrella and content design as, one could say, a single spoke of that umbrella.

The differences between my user-centred design course and my content design course

The main difference is that the user-centred design pathway is about the user-focused setting of content design – user research, iterating, being mindful of non-digital needs, understanding bias as a design team, understanding other UCD disciplines, a glossary of UCD terms.

UCD pathway: details of modules

Whereas the content design pathway is more focused on the “how” of applying that UCD thinking to content, and covers clear language, readability, content accessibility, and inclusivity. The only crossover module, that’s in both courses, is one on user needs.

Content design pathway: details of modules

Which one is better for practical accessibility and writing advice?

However, specifically for accessibility and writing for neurodivergent audiences, if you were to choose one pathway over the other I would say the content design pathway will have more directly applicable advice.

That said, the bias module of the user-centred design pathway would also be really relevant, as well as the 20+ user research methods it summarises, if you’ll be involved in researching.

I hope that helps people decide, if you’re choosing between them or considering taking both.