This document summarizes a presentation about accessibility and people-first design. It discusses how focusing only on the majority of users ignores edge cases and accessibility needs, and advocates for involving disabled people in the design process to uncover usability issues. It provides tips for conducting inclusive user research, such as accommodating participants, choosing an accessible location, and sharing results in impactful ways. The overall message is that considering accessibility and those outside the typical user leads to better design.
3. In UX, we seem to be struggling with the
effect our work has on people
4. Silicon Valley’s biggest failing is not
poor marketing of its products, or
follow-through on promises, but, rather,
the distinct lack of empathy for those
whose lives are disturbed by its
technological wizardry.
Om Malik, Silicon Valley has an Empathy Vacuum
http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/silicon-valley-has-an-empathy-
vacuum?intcid=mod-latest
5. …we often hear, “We’re designing for the
90%, not the 10%.” That’s classic edge-
case thinking: a shorter way of saying,
“That’s a difficult use case that I don’t
want to think about.” That’s why we think
the concept of stress cases is so
valuable.
Eric Meyer and Sarah Wachter-Boettcher, Design for Real Life
6. If we have an ethical obligation to be more
compassionate in our designs…
7. …then we have a professional obligation to
develop knowledge and skills to surface edge-
or stress-case scenarios and design to
accommodate them
8. Inclusive UX as an
approach to putting
people first
Photo: Flickr user Caroline Davis 2020
18. I encourage you to fail in interacting with
people with disabilities because you will learn a
bunch. You will learn what not to say and what
people care about.
You’ll learn about where the obstacles are—
both the designed, physical barriers and the
constructed emotional ones that exist within
yourself.
Wendy Chisholm, sp1ral.com/2014/04/
19. Photo: Flickr user @nearnearfuture
Designing an
inclusive research
activity
23. Sharing the results
Sharing results in an impactful way
Personas and scenarios
Journey maps
Video vignettes
Triaged issue list
A business case for further work
24. By concentrating solely on the bulge at the
center of the bell curve we are more likely to
confirm what we already know than learn
something new and surprising.
Tim Brown, Change By Design
Design for when there is no later. When design makes assumptions, the result can be discomfort, and often worse.
https://medium.com/@gradualclearing/design-for-when-there-is-no-later-e450733c8a0b
This talk considers the ethical challenge we face in designing tech for good, that focuses on humans
I’ll argue that involving disabled and older people in our UX activity can help increase our sensitivity to more diverse situations
And I’ll provide some practical advice on how you can do that.
Lack of empathy
Lack of appreciation of diversity, impact of tech
Inclusive design focuses on diversity in human capability. Diversity might be due to disability, or perhaps situation. As a researcher at Dundee University, I worked with researchers specialising in accessibility who persuaded the European Space Agency story that their astronauts experienced significant physical and cognitive impairment due to their environment, and that space technology design should accommodate this.
Disabled and older people are under-represented in user research. They’re seen as harder to reach groups, less prominent. Even when we think about diversity, focus is often on race, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion. All important, but with different UX challenges to solve.
Working with disabled and older people forces us to challenge our assumptions of what works and what doesn’t. What matters when visual, hearing, cognitive and physical capabilities are different to what you might expect
As an accessibility specialist who focuses on user research with disabled people, I’ve found over the years my sensitivities to diversity increasing, my awareness of the need for empathy growing. And my discomfort becomes more profound when we don’t think carefully enough about differences.
Consider the familiar Double D model to look at different UX research activities.
Often disability is only considered in convergent phases, and usually in the delivery phase (accessibility audits of mature products, or perhaps usability evaluations with one or two power users)
But involving disabled people earlier, and in divergent phases redresses a balance, changes the conversation and the relationship between designer and user.
It provides you with a more insightful perspective on a problem,
As an example of what user research with disabled people can do.
A participant in a recent usability study: a competent blind user who struggles to use a complex table in a banking web site to compare products. Despite a well-coded table, he found his own way to fix things.
Table coded more or less correctly
Open Account right at the top of the page
Some non-essential information (in the study, maintenance fee was yes/no rather than the amount)
Several people had strategy of extracting relevant content and creating own resources
Some insights don’t have to do with how things are design or coded
More about service design, surface opportunities to improve service
A contextual inquiry study with disabled people who use public transport.
Deaf participants reported that some information isn’t available in multiple channels. They might get on a commuter train, but because of earlier disruption, the transport authority decided to make the train an express train from the next station onwards. And they’d only announce that verbally.
So if you were deaf…
Or chatting…
Or listening to music…
Henny’s NUX5 talk last year provides an excellent overview of key accessible UX design principles, including exploration of equivalent experiences.
Applying best practices in accessible UX design is the other side of the coin to doing user research to understand a problem and evaluate potential solutions.
So, what practical steps can you take to increase the involvement of disabled people in UX activity?
This work is an opportunity, to give power to the people, and make better products
Talking to people, observing people
Asking people to do things, tell stories
Be flexible, be prepared to adapt your methods mid-study
Gather robust, quantitative data is harder; easier to focus on qualitative, experiential data
A challenge, since the population seems to be smaller and harder to reach. But it’s getting bigger. And more significant. And recruitment agencies need to know that.
Disabled people range even in apparently homogeneous groups (blind, low vision, “cognitive”, motor). Consider attitude, aptitude, ability
Non-profit orgs, social housing orgs, universities and colleges,
Explain participation; make it encouraging.
Venue and timing can be inhibitors
Information in advance, in accessible format. Ask what works best.
Don’t get too hung up on correct language; be aware of the obvious phrases to avoid, but ask participants for their preferences
Be flexible
Location—better to go where the participant is, but if not, choose an accessible location
Bring your own device is best. If not, use a device that has, or matches as best as possible, participants own.
Make sure the research stimuli is accessible to the participant and to you.
Tidy up the environment; cater for service dogs, companions
This work is an opportunity, to give power to the people, and make better products
Care enough to take the time to understand, learn different perspectives, build a culture that supports accessibility as part of inclusion.
The Lorax wasn’t successful.
We can’t delegate accessibility to the Lorax, we all have to understand and solve real problems that people are experiencing that make it difficult or impossible to participate in online learning.
“But now," says the Once-ler, "now that you're here, the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear. UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”