Stacey Swinehart and Rachel Power: CSUN 17 Presentation deck. Abstract: To be accessible, design must be usable. It’s time for a wider adoption of a conversation-first approach to design.

1. Removing barriers
to access with a
Conversation-first
Approach
Stacey Swinehart and Rachel Power

2. Conversation-first is
literally a conversation
between you and the
user.

3. The conversation is
human, which makes
the experience
intuitive, simple and
expected.

4. Accessibility is
inherently baked in.

5. The user is the hero.

6. Approach

7. Create a robust and
thoroughly examined
user problem
statement.

8. Bad
Let’s build a cloud based photo-management system
because users’ lives would be easier if they could
manage their digital photos through an elastic search
driven by date and location.

9. Better
I have so many digital photos floating around and I can’t
keep track of them. I wish there was a way to organize
them so I could better enjoy AND share them with friends
and family members more easily! I hate losing my happy
memories and not being able to easily access what I
want to see when I want it. I miss the days of photo
albums, that was so much easier

10. Best
I take lots of photos with my phone and they go to
someplace called “the cloud” - I have no idea where that
is. I want to be able to find, share and even print my
photos whenever I want, by myself, without having to ask
my grown children to do it for me. Why can’t it be easier?

11. Create realistic
personas based on
actionable user
insights.

12. Start the conversation.

14. The user’s story
always includes
barriers.
• Temporary or permanent mobility challenges
• Issues with language or reading comprehension
• Visual impairments
• Aging-related realities
• Long-term degenerative diseases

15. Create a user journey
map.

17. The conversation
naturally defines the
UX flow, page layout,
calls to action,
interaction and
hierarchy.

18. So, how does
Conversation-first help
my team create
accessible designs?

19. Conversation-first
reframes the mental
model for UX design.

20. Design best practices
still matter.

21. Real world – Blue sky
vs. inherited legacy
design.

22. This is not #fakenews
#alternativefacts. It’s
going to be YUGE!
Questions?