As I mentioned, I recently started a new job as a User Experience Lead.

I’ve been thinking about a moment in my interviewing for the position, that illustrated a simple, yet important principle of user experience — asking questions first.

One of the people interviewing me explained a scenario in which we needed a console for a piece of equipment. The console required several elements, including:

He then handed me a piece of graph paper, a pencil and an eraser. Amidst my typical interview jitters, I grabbed the pencil and started drawing. I think I asked a couple questions about the equipment, but hastily came up with a simple sketch of the display.

He thought it was a good stab. Then he mentioned that the users would wear big gloves, and the display would need buttons large enough to account for that.

Now, an interview for many reasons is not “real life”. You have a tiny window to encapsulate your qualifications and history. Overall, I felt I portrayed myself very well. Obviously well enough, because I got the job!

But the minute he mentioned the gloves thing, I mentally started kicking myself. I would have known such a detail if I had asked some basic questions about the target users before picking up the pencil.

To successfully create any experience– be it an application, a web site, a console — you need to understand who will be using it and how.

Again, that was just a simple interview question.

In the real world, finding out specifics about users should be the starting point. Interviewing actual users reveals a lot. User testing along the way helps focus your sketches, wireframes, designs, etcetera.

In short, if you take the time to frame up in advance who your target users are, and test what you are creating along the way, you will better ensure that the end product is actually usable and accessible.

Tags: user experience, user profiles, ux, wireframes

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

I thought I’d throw out a question, and encourage people to submit comments or respond via Twitter (which I’ll submit here). If this proves to be successful, I’ll have found a nice theme for weekend blogging!

This weekend’s question:
What are your favorite, go-to accessibility blogs and web sites?

Feel free to submit one choice, or 100. Any and all comments are welcome.

If you’re new to accessibility and still figuring it all out, but are a devotee to user experience, sharing general user experience blogs is just dandy too.

I’ve maintained my Related Links page here and there, but would like to do a better job showcasing the many great accessibility resources out there. I’d love to hear the sites other people frequent.

Thanks in advance!

Tags: a11y, accessibility, AxS, blogging, ux

Just this afternoon, Michael Seidel and I did a brief presentation to a group of web designers, outlining a process to better fuse user experience with design and development. The intent of this process is to raise awareness in the value of user experience every step of the way, from the initial wireframing through web site/page creation, and continually even after it is launched.

One key point we made – user experience isn’t one step in the process, to be executed once and checked off. It’s pervasive.

Web accessibility goes hand in hand with user experience. After all, what is accessibility but building experiences that are usable for everybody?

That also means that web accessibility isn’t a checkbox on your to-do list. It isn’t a singular task that you “do” and move on. It’s constant.

It’s something you think about when:

• you are card-sorting the key elements of a web site.
• you build wireframes of the information you’re presenting.
• you consider color contrasts, typography and layout while designing the page.
• you enter every single line of CSS, HTML, JavaScript, Flash, etcetera
• you ask users — disabled and non-disabled — to test out your new web experience and share what works and what doesn’t.

User experience and accessibility aren’t individual tasks at one specific point in time. They are ways of thinking that carry through every aspect necessary to build a web site or page.

Don’t marginalize either by ignoring them or relegating them to one tiny line item in your project.

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

As I progress in my advocacy of web accessibility, I’m noticing a sea change in what I consider myself professionally.

For the majority of my career, I’ve considered myself a “web designer”. While I’ve never felt my designs to be the most eye-popping, stunning masterpieces, I inherently put together visuals that are straightforward, clean and effective. Still, web design was my wheelhouse, and the subject of my strongest advocacy. Beautiful designs equalled great web sites.

Though it’s been out there for a few years now, I recently heard the quote from web design and standards luminary Jeffrey Zeldman:
“Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.”

That sentiment is really sticking with me. Decoration.

I’ve been in the web/e-commerce industry for twelve years now. Now more than ever, I’m seeing that design is but a piece to the puzzle of an effective web site. A finished jigsaw puzzle reveals the whole picture; one solitary piece doesn’t.

Content is a key piece.
User experience is a key piece.
Accessibility (or more broadly, well-constructed, semantic markup) is a key piece.

I’ve too often watched content writing, user experience and accessibility get kicked to the curb. This isn’t always intentional — sometimes they get skipped to meet rushed deadlines. Sometimes it’s just ignorance to their value. “Make it beautiful and people will come!”

And so, I’ve seen designs that look absolutely phenomenal…but do not effectively tell me what the site is about. I’ve seen designs with brilliant visuals and sizzle…that are hard to navigate. I’ve listened to marketing folks harp that their site needs to be beautiful and “sexy” (a nauseating word to describe web sites)…but don’t take a single moment to actually listen to their users.

If a site has the greatest aesthetics in the world, but it doesn’t take into account its users, it’s a failure. At the end of the day, people — whether they are disabled or not — want to get where they need to go.

Design will always be part of who I am. But I’m no longer swayed simply by shiny objects and pretty pictures. Something beautiful constructed in Photoshop is great….but it better clearly show what the site is about, have clear-cut navigation, and elements that are important and logical to visitors. And it sure better not throw up obstacles to those with disabilities simply trying to get what they need.

Over the past year, I’ve found myself cutting down on the web design RSS feeds and replacing them with user experience ones. I’m not interested in the latest PhotoShop tips and tutorials. I’ll leave those for others — the most important thing to me now is advocating the union of design, user experience, content and accessibility, not focusing on simply decoration.

Tags: accessibility, content, jeffrey zeldman, user experience, ux, web design