User Interface Engineering

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Accessibility is important, but somewhere along the way it got an undeserved reputation for being ugly, costly, and driven only by technical-compliance requirements. Making it an integral part of your design early creates something that is beautiful, inexpensive, and user-experience-driven. When someone with a disability comes across usability issues in your design, they’re likely to be amplified. Something of minor inconvenience for a user could be a significant roadblock to another using assistive technology.

Derek Featherstone of Simply Accessible believes that implementing accessibility into your designs will flatout make for better design. In his virtual seminar, Accessibility as a Design Tool, Derek shares examples of ways to improve the overall design process by ensuring accessibility is taken into account at a variety of phases.

During the live seminar, the audience asked a lot of great questions. Derek joins Adam Churchill to discuss some of those questions in this podcast.

• How can you implement this idea into an existing process?
• How do accessibility and responsive web design fit together?
• What are examples of functional needs to incorporate into personas?
• What is a good way to find people with disabilities to work with early in the process?
• How do you get QA involved in this process?
• How should you address the issue of low vision?
• How can you get buy-in to bring accessibility into the process earlier?

Recorded: February, 2013
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In this week’s UIEtips, Kate Kiefer Lee explains why it’s important to pay attention and understand the difference between voice and tone.

Here’s an excerpt from the article

Voice and tone. Tone and voice. Though the words “voice” and “tone” are often used interchangeably, they’re not synonyms. Our voice makes us unique, and our tone makes us sound like humans. Establishing a likable voice is critical for brands, but there’s more to it. Companies that acknowledge the distinction—maintaining a consistent voice and paying careful attention to their tone—publish more meaningful web content and build better relationships with their users.

All too often, empathy is absent from web content. That’s why every company needs voice and tone standards—they help us understand our customers and show them respect.

Read the article: Tone and Voice: Showing Your Users That You Care.

Learn more from Kate Kiefer Lee on voice and tone

We’re lucky to have Kate give a UIE Virtual Seminar March 7 on Voice and Tone: Creating Content for Humans. Kate will show you how to establish voice guidelines that inspire your writers’ creativity. She’ll share real-life examples of empathetic writing and talk about the importance of establishing content standards that make corporate writing fun.

How do you decide what tone is appropriate for different content? Tell us about it below.

We’re celebrating this year’s UX Immersion Mobile Conference’s fantastic program by giving everyone access to last year’s great show. The recordings and slide decks contain a wealth of information.

• Learn how to incorporate Agile methods while still fitting user-focused activities
  into your projects.
• Design for mobile based on how people think and what emergent themes to keep an eye
  on in the future.
• Interweave Agile and scrum methods and tactics with traditional design practices.
• Focus on connectivity, productivity, and moving critical tasks from the desktop to a
  mobile device.
• Hear what today’s UX designers need in a mobile environment to deliver excellent,
  world-changing designs.
• Explore past ideas of best processes and techniques while integrating Agile methods.
• Explore past ideas of best processes and techniques while integrating Agile methods.

These UX experts will amp up your mobile design and Agile skills: Luke Wroblewski, Jeff Gothelf, Rachel Hinman, Dave McFarland, James Robertson, Hugh Beyer, Daniel Burka, Andrei Herasimchuk, and Jared Spool.

You’ll get all 10 hours of video and audio recordings, all the presentation decks, and the conference materials from last year’s conference. All for free with no catches.

How to get the free recordings?

It’s easy. Just submit your email by Friday, February 22, 11:59 PM ET and you’ll get last year’s UX Immersion talks and materials for free. No tricks, no quantity limits. We’ll send you an email with details on how to access this bundle of goodness.

Now hurry and act fast to get last year’s UXIM OnDemand and be sure to spread the word. The clock is ticking.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 31:09 — 0.0KB)

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As more web capable devices hit the market, designers need to consider where and how their designs will be seen. Unfortunately, the same consideration isn’t always made when it comes to content. With design changing so much in a multichannel environment, content must be structured independent of how it will eventually look.

Content touches all aspects of a design. Having presentation independent content allows for it to adapt to different screens and devices. Karen McGrane suggests that having the specifics of how the content will be structured in place first, allows for the freedom and flexibility to make the right design choices.

Karen says that the advent of WYSIWYG editors shifted focus to the wrong things at the wrong time. Content took a backseat to the overall look of the design. Thinking about content first, over how it will appear, helps ensure you’re communicating the right message.

Karen is presenting one of the daylong workshops at the UX Immersion Mobile conference April 22-24 in Seattle. For more information about Karen’s and the other workshops, visit uxim.co.

Recorded: December, 2012
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In this week’s UIEtips, I discusses the concept of context-aware design, where it is today, and the possibilities of its future.

Here’s an excerpt from the article

Imagine being in a foreign city, trying to get across town to catch a train. Not knowing where you are, relative to the train station. Getting to the station and having trouble find your way to the train. Interpreting the schedule to ensure you’re on the right train at the right time. Knowing what your food options are before you get onboard.

What could we do with that hyper connected super computer in our pocket? We could start to design an experience that puts us at ease and helps us navigate the world.

We could start simply, by giving simple direction and time estimates on when you’ll arrive at the train station, whether you take a cab, walk, or other local transportation options. This is easy to do with today’s technology.

On the same screen, we could have the information about the train we hope to catch. If it looks like we may have trouble making it to the station in time, we could give information about other routes to get to our destination city.

Read the article: Context-Aware Design: A New Frontier.

Start mapping your customer’s experience

Are you interested in mapping out the future of your customer’s experience with your applications? Chris Risdon’s full-day workshop at the UX Immersion Mobile Conference in Seattle, April 22 will help you develop the user’s journey. Learn more about Chris’ workshop.

Where do you think the future of context-aware design is headed? Tell us about it below.

We’ve got something special happening on March 7. Kate Kiefer Lee will be presenting Voice and Tone: Creating Content for Humans as part of our virtual seminar program.

The organizational content we’re creating for the web is too often formal, lacking emotion. It’s written for organizations, not people. Writing content for humans is challenging, and doing it while articulating your organization’s personality is even more difficult.

MailChimp is one company that’s successfully established a brand voice—and is still working to keep it. As a result, they’ve become known for their punchy, honest messaging that builds trust with users and makes them smile, too. Kate Kiefer Lee will share real-life examples of empathetic writing and talk about the importance of establishing content standards that make corporate writing fun.

Kate delivered an earlier version of this presentation at a sold out Confab in 2012.

If you want to maintain a consistent tone in your content while putting readers first, then sign up for Kate’s seminar today.

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Des Traynor is an expert on crafting microcopy. In his virtual seminar, Microcopy That Strengthens your Design’s Experience, Des identifies the key questions to ask when creating microcopy so that it doesn’t get lost or created by accident. The audience asked a bunch of great questions during the live seminar and Des joins Adam Churchill to answer some questions in this podcast.

• How does globalization come into play when crafting microcopy?
• How should you store and retrieve microcopy for reuse?
• How can you scale your effort when supporting multiple products?
• Are there guidelines to using pronouns in labels?
• What is the value of mouse-over clarification text?
• How can you prevent stakeholders from insisting on copy you know to be problematic?
• Are there principles to writing error messages?
• How can you get a writer involved earlier in the design process?

Recorded: November, 2012
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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:32 — 0.0KB)

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Building a prototype is a great way to test your design early on with users. Whether you choose to go for a high-fidelity representation, or go lo-fi with paper, you can learn a lot about the usability of your site. Often, teams are concerned with which technique or tool to use because of the litany that are available.

Kelly Goto, founder of Gotomedia, suggests that the importance of the tool lies more with when you use it than why. Like a great chef preparing a meal, they use the right tool at the right time to arrive at the finished state. Use the appropriate tool and you’re sure to cut down on difficulties you might encounter.

Part of having a mobile strategy in the first place is understanding exactly why you’re “going mobile”. Once you’ve determined what the value is to a mobile experience, Kelly says even something like paper prototyping can help validate the concept quickly.

Kelly is presenting one of the daylong workshops at the UX Immersion Mobile conference April 22-24 in Seattle. For more information about Kelly’s and the other workshops, visit uxim.co.

Recorded: December, 2012
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In this week’s UIEtips, Adam Spool interviews Steph Hay about the difference between marketing and usable content and methods to help copywriters and designers work together in creating design and copy?

Here’s an excerpt from the article

I have to think about the user, so I typically start with a text file. I create the content in a text file based on conversations with the client and with end users. I then hand it to the designer and the designer really builds the site around that. Once I hand it to the designer and some comps come back, I might make a few UI/UX suggestions in the notations as part of the content.

Otherwise, I leave it entirely up to the UX designer to create wire frames around the content itself. In all cases so far, the designer has really loved this process. It’s liberated that person from having to think about the content because it’s already there and that’s what’s ultimately speaking to the user. It’s created a structure and a process around the most important stuff to be communicated without requiring the visuals to lead back to it.

Read the article: Making Content More Usable for both Designers and the End User.

Hear more from Steph Hay

On February 14, in her seminar Building Trust with Your Users through Messaging & Copy, Stephanie Hay is going to show you how to take cues from online and offline interactions to write candid content, craft helpful user experiences, and maintain users’ confidence even when you “fail.”

How do you begin your process of moving from content into design? Tell us about it below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 29:51 — 15.6MB)

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What makes a user want to download an app in the first place? Ideally, it’s the promise of fulfilling a goal or need for the user. With the hundreds of thousands of options available, and the immediacy of the mobile context, you have a small window of opportunity to engage your user. If users can’t easily use your app, they simply won’t.

Mobile devices are stuffed full of sensors and cameras, yet forms tend to be the prevailing means of input on these devices. Creating an account, uploading a profile photo, and registering, right as you first open an app creates an incredible barrier to use. Luke, in his app Polar, opted to let users experience the app itself. Because users see what it does first, there’s a greater conversion rate.

Luke says that with 80% of mobile app use time being focused on entertainment, the phone has really just become another screen in our lives, like the TV. Games and social networking make up a lot of the time users spend on their phones. Luke suggests that companies consider this aspect of entertainment when developing their own apps.

Luke is presenting one of the daylong workshops at the UX Immersion Mobile conference April 22-24 in Seattle. For more information about Luke’s and the other workshops, visit uxim.co.

Recorded: December, 2012
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