Back in June, I had the opportunity to attend the inaugural event for mkeUX, an informal gathering point for user experience enthusiasts in the Milwaukee area.

The kickoff topic was content strategy, and they knocked it out of the park by having two exceptional speakers, Gretchen Thomas (Content Strategy: It’s Not All Greek slides) and Margot Bloomstein.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about how content strategy correlates with accessibility. Effective content presentation most definitely helps create a more accessible experience.

Let me count (some of) the ways!

Content comes in different shapes and sizes. I’ve worked with people who still equate content with just the text on the page.

Content is many, many things of all shapes and sizes, including:

• Information copy
• Images
• Video
• Comments
• Keywords and metadata
• Search engine optimization tags and information

Content is quite the umbrella, and we’ve talked many times about how many of these examples are very important in an accessible experience.

Just some examples of content’s role in accessibility:
Copy needs to be clear, direct and easy to understand. Ramble too much or get cute with flowery words, analogies or corporate speak, and those with cognitive disabilities may struggle mightily to understand the information. Even those without disabilities may get lost or simply move on to somewhere else where they can more easily get what they need.

We’ve talked about images and video plenty of times. Choosing imagery with poor color contrast may prevent those with various types of color blindness from effectively seeing what it is you’re displaying. Poor or absent alt tags will block those using screen readers from understanding what the image they cannot see is representing, or may never know there’s an image there at all. And of course video without effective captions or transcripts is just moving pictures to those who cannot hear.

Like many aspects of accessibility, poor content strategy affects many within your audience, whether they are disabled or not. Effective messaging, imagery, placement of information, etcetera will enable users to get the information they need, research and/or buy the product they are interested in…whatever it is they are coming to your site to do.

Tags: alt tags, content strategy, seo, video captions

I haven’t blogged in over a month, which is not a good thing. However, the main reason that I haven’t is a very good one.

A week from today, I am starting a new job — and it’s directly in User Experience.

When I wrote The Evolution of a Designer, I talked about how time, experience and passion naturally progressed my career towards user experience. I no longer saw myself as strictly a designer or coder, but instead someone striving to build, from concept level through completion and beyond, experiences that users, whether they are disabled or not, can easily understand and navigate through towards whatever their end destination.

What I didn’t realize on that day in March is that, mere months later, I’d get the opportunity to join a User Experience team being formed from the ground up.

I’ve been at the same organization (The Mark Travel Corporation) for over twelve years. I consider myself blessed to have had the opportunity to forge a rewarding career in the Web industry, from an entry-level HTML coder to seasoned web designer to manager of a large team of designers and producers.

Throughout that journey, I’ve learned a lot of things. One, I’ve realized that the most beautiful designs in the world are just pretty pictures if they don’t get the user exactly where they need to go. I’ve realized that whatever the experience — a web site, an application, etc. — content that is poorly-crafted or with no clear strategy will destroy it. And I’ve certainly realized how incredibly easy it is to overlook disabled users in creating these experiences.

Now, I’m delving into a role in which I can truly, day in and day out, focus on getting all of that right, and making a difference along the way. When a large company firmly establishes that user experience needs to be in front of everything they build, that’s a tremendous, exciting opportunity.

I’m beyond thrilled.

As I travel down this path, I’m sure I’ll have plenty to share along the way.

Tags: accessibility, content strategy, user experience, ux, web design