World Usability day 2021

The Internet has radically changed our lives over the past 30 years. It brings people together and makes day-to-day tasks easier, but with that comes new challenges. World Usability Day this year focuses on some of these key challenges digital teams face when designing for our world:

• How do we create trust in the online environment?
• What are the ethical implications of our designs?
• How do we design for accessibility, to ensure that everyone can use our designs?

This year, the goal is to explore design that is helping people connect, learn and grow, with a focus on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. When we’re planning for user research activities, exploring how our products and services can be more accessible shouldn’t be seen as an “add on” or “something we’ll look at later”. If a product is accessible, it will provide a better experience for all users. It’s simple. What’s not so simple, is changing mindsets amongst product teams (who we know are up against deadlines) to view the product as a whole, rather than become focused on specific parts that they’ve been tasked with.

How do we design for accessibility, to ensure that everyone can use our designs?

“This is a complex question, but the answer is simple. We design for inclusivity by running engaging research throughout the design process with all target users (with and without impairments). We also use our experiences and well-established guidelines (like WCAG v2.1) to influence the design and development choices we make. This approach gives us the best chance of creating truly accessible products and services.”

Mickela Perera, Principal AX Consultant, System Concepts

To give some insights into how you can carry out research with users of your product to ensure your teams are designing with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion at the forefront of ideation, we’ve provided a recent example of our work with the BBC around iPlayer. 

BBC Subtitles case study