Designing for difference: Are you failing at the most important design challenge

There is no such thing as a “typical user.” People may have similar goals or jobs to get done, but they bring differences in preferences, knowledge, language, interaction style, and perspectives. Broadening our vision to design for differences is a conscious act of innovation. It starts with embracing the tools of accessibility, plain language, and language access for modern, responsive design. And broadening our research and testing to include the full diversity of our audiences. If you aren’t designing for difference, ask yourself who are you leaving out.
At the Center for Civic Design, we’ve learned that designing democracy requires changing our practice and how we approach our work. As one project partner put it, “If all we do is make it a little easier for people who already vote, we have failed.” From voter guides to ballots, the goal of our work is to expand civic engagement and participation - including everyone, with all their differences
This presentation was created for World IA Day, 2019

1. 1 Are you failing at the most important design challenge? Whitney Quesenbery Center for Civic Design @civicdesign | @whitneyq NYC WIAD 2019: Designing for difference
2. We create the future Disability can produce a radical new direction in mainstream design Graham Pullen Design Meets Disability
3. Three challenges for our practices Who are we leaving out of our work? How can we create delight? How might we change our practice?
4. 4 In your own work… Who is included? Who is left out?
5. What dimensions of difference do we pay attention to? Personal expression of gender, race, ethnicity Interaction and communication needs Technology use Language Literacy Equity
6. People first: designing for differences
7. 7 Carol JacobLea Emily Steven Maria Trevor Vishnu What makes these people different? Or the same?
8. 8 It takes getting out of your own space Photos: ITIF AVTI/CATEA, CCD
9. 9 Don’t sweat the demographics (but do pay the mix)
10. Universal usability: creates delight
11. 11 Designing for delight begins with a balance of small pleasures and consideration. Dana Chisnell in thedelightfulexperience.com/
12. 12 What we expect Low expectations High expectations Whatweget BadexperienceGoodexperience Low expectations Bad experience Expectations met High expectations Bad experience Uh-Oh High expectations Good experience Expectations met Low expectations Good experience Pleasant surprise Delight occurs in the intersection of expectations and experience
13. 13 What signs suggest that you are about to have a good experience? Or at least Not. A. Bad. One.
14. Accommodation  Accessibility  Universal design
15. How might we think differently about designing for difference?
16. 16 Principles for Accessible UX 1. People first: designing for differences 2. Clear purpose: well designed goals 3. Solid structure: built to standards 4. Easy interaction: everything works 5. Helpful wayfinding: guides users 6. Clean presentation: supports meaning 7. Plain language: creates conversation 8. Accessible media: supports all senses 9. Universal usability: creates delight
17. We dream of creating something beautiful…
18. But end up with an experience that isn’t delightful for anyone
19. We can think differently about interaction
20. 20 We can learn how to be helpful Helpful wayfinding: guides users
21. 21 We make even the most utilitarian function delightful
22. 22 We can design information to be clear and meaningful
23. 43% of adults in the US read at basic or below basic levels U.S. National Assessment of Adult Literacy http://nces.ed.gov/naal/kf_demographics.asp 14% 29% 44% 13% 30 Million 63 Million 95 Million 28 Million
24. We are what we practice Let’s change what we bring to our work, by changing our practice
25. “What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It’s the gift of anticipation.” Mrs. Wilson in Gosford Park
26. “Judge me by my size, do you?” Michael Hayes, Buddha Body Yoga
27. “They were the star of the show—these wooden boots peeking out from under this raffia dress—but in fact, they were actually legs made for me.” Photo: blog.metmuseum.com Aimee Mullins: My 12 pairs of legs: http://www.ted.com/
28. Photo: mtstcil.org
29. How might we change our practice? Admit it Practice it Embrace it
30. Thank you Whitney Quesenbery whitneyq@civicdesign.org slideshare.net/whitneyq @whitneyq civicdesign.org @civicdesign

Editor's Notes

Ask:
- Do usability testing or other research?
- Think about your last event – who did you work with?

Let’s think about how diverse that was.
Shout outs

Let’s explore this and think about the kinds of differences that they honor.

Which ones get a mention?
Are they phrased as personal characteristics or behavioral characteristics
Which can we design for

A few years ago, I wrote a book called A Web for Everyone with Sarah Horton. We wanted to look at accessibility from the perspective of designers.
We organized the book around a series of principles building from structure to presentation. We’ll take a look at some of the details later, but I want to start at the beginning. Because we realized that the most important thing is that we start from people.

We also realized that we had to think about the full range of people.
That meant not naming people by their disability, but thinking about their attitudes, and behaviors, not just ability
We could have written the obligatory chapter about the physical and cognitive dimensions of disability, but we wanted to put a human face on it.
So we created these personas. They are online and available to everyone at the Rosenfeld Media web site.

To start, let’s think about how many types of difference they represent?

Ask: what are you seeing?
Ask: what are you not seeing?

These personas they are just a starting point, not . The goal isn’t for you to take these personas and drop them into your own persona set. They are an invitation for you to use them to launch your own investigations. To find the Trevors and Leas and Vishnus who are in your audience and get to know them

In the past 10 years, my research practice has migrated out of the lab and the business office and out to farmer’s markets and libraries, and shopping centers, and well. Street corners. And workshop rooms.
That came about because of the work we do at CCD. We were looking for everyday people. People who are not deeply engaged, who don’t show up at focus groups, who might not speak English well, and almost certainly would fail the screener filter for being articulate.
I am NOT saying you have to do your UX research the same way.
But you do have to think – hard – about how the way you engage your audience might be blinding you to differences in perspective and needs and behaviors.

For those of you who do formal recruiting, I want to encourage you to think about communities and how you reach out to many of them. In a study in California, we managed differences by where we went

The last principle in A Web for Everyone tries to bring it all together. I’ve fought hard for the word “delight” – and it is usually an argument that delight is a soft, emotional word.

So let me give you an example.
Do you have a favorite seat on an airplane? I do. It’s seat 21C or 21D on almost any United flight, with 21 A or F as a backup. So I always want to pick my seat.
These days, being able to pick a seat isn’t such a big deal… When a friend called – just a little surprised.
Until I remember that she uses the web through a screen reader.

People want feel as if they are being paid attention to and that their needs were anticipated.

Bad expectations met – the black hole we are in today
High expectations met – the goal – what we hope not to notice one day
High expectations dashed – the danger – anti-patterns and bad design
Low expectations exceeded – the moments of delight

Accessibility flips this – too often, looking for Not A Bad One
Living in that bad lower left corner of poor expectations met.

This is about how we change this!

And because too often we have things that are Accessible? Usable? Universal?

Structure isn’t just hidden things, though much of the structure of an experience is hidden.
Shape, material, relationships, color, and craftsmanship are both structure and design
Have to start with goal of delightful experience.

Android touch dialer app

“ And I'm a good servant; I'm better than good, I'm the best; I'm the perfect servant. I know when they'll be hungry, and the food is ready. I know when they'll be tired, and the bed is turned down. I know it before they know it themselves.”

“ And you know, the fact is, nobody knew that they were prosthetic legs. They were the star of the show—these wooden boots peeking out from under this raffia dress—but in fact, they were actually legs made for me.”

Designing for difference: Are you failing at the most important design challenge

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Designing for difference: Are you failing at the most important design challenge

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Designing for difference: Are you failing at the most important design challenge

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Designing for difference: Are you failing at the most important design challenge

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