Christopher Taylor Edwards

Worth reading through this article on the ever important topic of Accessibility. https://lnkd.in/e8JamZSS #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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Diversity in design isn't just a buzzword—it's a business imperative. 🌈 As a hiring manager, I've seen firsthand how diverse teams boost creativity, product quality, and profitability. I believe in building teams that reflect our users and bring fresh perspectives to every project. How do you ensure fairness during the hiring process when you have to look at portfolios? Here is my perspective on the challenges of inclusive hiring. #DiversityInDesign #InclusiveHiring #TeamBuilding

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It’s impossible to write a meaningful book about transformative change through a design process without citing Dan Hill and Justin W. Cook a billion times. I have been applying much of their appraoch and thinking through my own practice. Deploying design as a conversation across some of the most challenging circumstances where design is often absent. After two decades of experience, it is clearly apparent that the most precious resources for any kind of social change is time. The time to become a part of a community, to stick around, to learn, to listen, to nurture and to foster the agency for the community to create. Society Driven Design explores a new way to sustain long form conversations beyond the time bound restrictions of project deadlines and political terms of office. The Social License. As Oliver Balch beautifully summarises, “The Social License is not only the vehicle for change but, the actual change we want (and need) to see.” The Social License is a safe and enabling collaborative approach, with no agendas, or briefs to work to . . . the Social License, legitimising our conversations. More here: Society Driven Design: Co-Creating Brighter Futures https://amzn.eu/d/4ArURLw

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Talking about #accessibility workshops and European Accessibility Act. Mostly about not getting trapped by sense that checklists/standards will save the day. More about extending and building personal and communal capabilities. 2 workshops. One in extending the sense that skills people already have are accessibility skills when reframed. One on extending individual sense of perception and capacities to understand personal divergence and its relationship to communal diversity.

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When you have a minute, check out this RKD blog post for #nonprofits on balancing #ethics and #automation in an #AI World. https://lnkd.in/gHxPCb_m

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Lucy Woodcock spends much of her time at work 'doing' diverse usability testing. She has recently blogged "#UserTesting Unveiled: A Step-by-Step Exploration" and aims to demystify the process. Here are #KeyTakeaways from her blog: 1. Importance of #InclusiveDesign and #Accessibility: Inclusive design and accessibility are crucial factors in shaping user experiences. User testing with people with disabilities can help reach a broader audience and cater to diverse needs. 2. Meticulous Planning: User testing begins with meticulous planning, including setting dates, arranging calls, and recruiting diverse participants. A clear research plan aligned with client objectives ensures a valuable and inclusive testing project. 3. Remote Usability Testing: Remote usability testing provides flexibility for testers and clients alike. It gives clients the opportunity to observe sessions first-hand, turning the testing day into a collaborative experience. 4. Analysis of Results: Analysis of user testing results is a crucial part of the process, highlighting key issues and forming recommendations. Different tools and methods may be used for analysis, but the goal remains insightful insights and recommendations. 5. Comprehensive User Testing Report: The user testing report is the end deliverable for clients, containing evidenced insights and relevant recommendations closely linked to client objectives. A clear, justified, and measurable report increases implementation and improves accessibility. 6. Continuous Improvement: A #retrospective allows the team to review successes and identify areas for improvement, ensuring #adaptability to evolving client needs and making each project a stepping stone to future success. 7. Enquiring about User Testing Service: User testing services with companies like Accessible Me Ltd, eLaHub Ltd, or AbilityNet ensure you asking the right people the right questions at the right time and making the best use of their feedback. 8. Self-Conducting User Testing: Learning how to conduct user testing can provide reassurance in making accessibility improvements and focusing resources in the right areas. Like AbilityNet, Accessible Me Ltd offers training courses (both online and offline) for those interested in starting their own #AccessibilityTesting. Accessible Me Ltd's focus is in the #eLearning, #LearningAndDevelopment, and #BrandMarketing areas; helping to make learning accessible to everyone. These takeaways highlight the importance of meticulous planning, remote usability testing, thorough analysis, and continuous improvement in creating inclusive and accessible user experiences through user testing.

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Among the things I appreciate in this piece on accessibility (#a11y) testing and research… * De-risking projects by frontloading research instead of pushing for testing at the end. * Addressing limitations of Figma-based approaches. * Advocating for co-design and other research methods which go beyond mere testing (or survey-based analysis). * Acknowledging issues with some prototyping methods. * Embedding accessibility in a broader frame for inclusion. The first and last points have been on my mind for years (and I was mentioning them in a public conversation on aging at Concordia University’s University of the Streets Café). At some point, we need to find ways to “frontload all the things”. From Gender-Based Analysis Plus (GBA+, which includes aging and indigenous status) to usability, from accessibility to cybersecurity, from copyright to feasibility, from Environmental Impact Assessment to language support and localization (#l10n). Sounds like a tall order… so many of us propose approaches which take all sorts of things into account through #SystemsThinking and, in the case of #UXresearch … co-creation and #ethnography. What this requires most is to avoid “converging too quickly”. It’s still important not to “diverge too long”. The tipping point is easier to find when diverse stakeholders are involved at key steps, early in the process. Not just users, specialists, customers, and “decision-makers”. People who have a stake in the project, even if their influence is low. In the context of many #LivingLabs, such approaches are standard procedure. And it helps push for a solid embedding in community-driven innovation. So, yes, let’s do actual research on accessibility through every step of the process behind any project where humans will access the things we create. We can also establish research (protocols and all) as a core function which integrates other aspects of the service or product we create together. And while scale does make a huge difference on the way this is done, there are ways to undertake very small projects which hit all those notes, with commensurate effort. https://lnkd.in/eT56yN5D

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Stéphanie shares lots of great resources for designers -- and if you don't follow her, you should. She does a beautiful job of using plain language and incorporating enough imagery to explain concepts so that it's easy to understand. This particular article is great for designers that are trying to incorporate accessibility into their design work. #Accessibility #a11y #UX #UserExperience #DigitalDesign #ProductDesign #UXResearch #DesignResearch #UserResearch #VisualDesign #InteractionDesign #FrontEndDev

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⏱ “Just in time accessibility docs” I think I’ve been doing it all wrong. As we build out our design system, we’ve been continuing to add lengthy accessibility documentation to each of our components, check. But is it actually helpful? → W3C Guidelines are verbose and many of the guidelines become redundant once the component has been built. → Text based documentation can be hard to visualize without examples or access to assistive technology. → While components may test accessible in isolation, new issues come up when components are used in context. 👏 Some folks who are doing it right that we're trying to learn from at Exygy → Carbon design system from IBM provides context specific tips for both designers and developers. The guidelines they provide act as quick implementation checklists. https://lnkd.in/gbmeJe5F → GOLD Design System by Design System AU is really unique in the way that it provides accessibility previews of components. I really dig how they simulate keyboard navigation and color blindness! https://lnkd.in/gDBgUiyN → USWDS from GSA goes above and beyond any system that I have seen by providing accessibility testing documentation that can be used when doing QA of components in the wild. ...whoa https://lnkd.in/gYP2ptrR 💎 A couple of things our team has taken away from these amazing resources that might be helpful to others: → Focus component documentation on the most "actionable" implementation details for both designers and engineers. → Reserve verbose technical setup requirements for the initial component acceptance criteria. → Experiment with ways to easily preview accessibility options and outputs. → If possible, document how someone could test issues that could come up during ongoing product feature development and QA. 🧙‍♂️ This post was in part inspired by a talk from Dan Mall at the last Figma Config when he referenced "Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince" to describe the "notes in the margins that help Harry improve his potion skills" as a way to describe better "just in time" design system documentation. If you do actually need the verbose stuff for component acceptance criteria you can always get it here: → W3C Authoring practices guide https://lnkd.in/g_MUENbn #accessibility #designsystems #documentation #ui #uidesign

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I’m noticing a peculiar design related anti-pattern of sorts in the post ZIRP economic environment. It’s where companies have the budget to staff design talent, albeit in lower numbers, but the development budget is so limited that teams are unable to implement the work designers produce. This is the third economic downturn I’ve experienced and we always get pendulum swings. In this one, there seems to be a bias toward austerity and implementing the least expensive solution.

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What do you think of the term "user" as it pertains to design work? I think it's never simple. With anything we build and launch into the world, there are direct and indirect consequences for people and the planet over a range of time scales. There are many "users," and there are many being "used." Great piece by Taylor Majewski in MIT Technology Review where she unpacks the word, its origins in design, and looks forward to what might be next. I enjoyed our interview! https://lnkd.in/gSsXh5fA

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The UX Researcher Salary Report is out, and it includes Designers who indicate that they do some research in their role. I thought it was interesting that Designers who do research reported lower salaries than Researchers. Whenever there has been a salary disparity (and in many cases there is not) I have found that Design is the more highly paid speciality. Is this reversal possibly something specifically happening with companies that expect Designers to research? Which is a possible devaluation of the UX field as a whole? Just throwing out a hypothesis.

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Empathy is the heart of great design. It's not about designing for users, it's about designing with them. This article from The Interaction Design Foundation highlights the importance of empathy in design thinking and encourages collaboration, leading to truly user-centered experiences. #uxdesign #designthinking #empathy #usercentereddesign

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I'm loving this article on how designers need to elevate their thinking on integrating AI at various stages of the user journey to tackle entire processes, not just one-off tricks. ✨ Enter the "Agentic era of UX". 🤖 https://lnkd.in/eWdHbeWv #ai #agentic #design #ux #ui

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I'm a big fan of Ben Callahan and the "The Question" sessions. I'm also a big fan of Dan Donald, who's co-hosting the "design systems failures" topic. On this topic of missing the mark with *building the thing your org actually needs* not "here's what the 'how to design system' article told me", I humbly submit this HFWNW (hopes, fears, working, not working) framework/model and activity as one of many ways to start that data gathering and synthesis journey. I was lucky enough to present it during Figma's Schema event last year. Give the talk a watch, if you're interested (its only 20m) and download the provided resources to try it at your org/with your team: https://lnkd.in/g-Jj6Ede

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Check out my latest article on the Digital Discernment Lab's research, titled "What’s in a toolkit? Designers reveal their best practices." Ever wondered how designers know who’s using the toolkits they created to address pressing technical-social problems? How do they know if users are getting any benefit? I delve into this topic and more in my overview of our CHI 2024 paper. Don't miss out on the insights! https://lnkd.in/gBjmFciB

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