Category: accessibility

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UX-LX: Talks on Digital Harm and Understanding Searcher Behavior

User Experience Lisbon 2023

In May, I was invited to speak at UX Lisbon, on Preventing Digital Harm in Online Spaces. At the main event, I presented the Internet Safety Lab’s framework for evaluating the relationship that digital technologies have with consumers and what we can do as designers to mitigate the digital harms and dark patterns that could potentially violate that relationship. You can download my presentation below.

Download the PDF

On the first day of the event, I ran a half-day, pre-conference workshop titled “Designing Effective Search Strategies” in which I introduced a new framework using observation as a powerful tool to understand site search behavior. To explore this, we broke into seven groups and worked on creating empathy maps, search personas (including group personas) and mapping the user journey toward information discovery. As a takeaway, all participants received a toolkit for crafting these artifacts and a step-by-step process to enhance product search. We got to eat yummy Portuguese snacks, too!

Lisbon Convention Center

“Noreen … made the interesting point that if we build an accessible design we’ll also be solving many search problems.”

— UXLx: UX Lisbon

What a wonderful event, interesting and welcoming people and an absolutely unforgettable time!

I am available to teach your team mitigating digital harm as a solo facilitator or how to understand user search behavior, solo or with my colleagues at the Information Architecture Gateway. Let me know if we can help.

Read the UXLX Write-ups at Medium:

UXLX 2023 Wrap Up: Workshops

UXLX 2023 Wrap Up: Talks Day

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Thoughts on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) as a Design Framework

“Tools for Accessibility” by Noreen Whysel. AI generated art produced at NightCafe Studio

I was on a call the other day where we were discussing identity services for underserved populations. Someone brought up Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) as a framework for ensuring accessible services for all.

DEI, as applied to product and service design, is a three-pronged philosophy that asks if you are assuring that diverse perspectives and lived experiences are being considered in the design of the service; whether access to the design or service is fair to all categories of people; and whether those—whose diverse experiences are considered—feel safe, welcome and included in the service and its outcome.

We discussed DEI in our group, but one person became uncomfortable, insisting that it doesn’t matter who is using the services as long as everyone can use it. He was concerned that focusing on DEI might mean that the unique needs of people, like the parent of a disabled person, would be excluded from consideration in the design of a product or service.

I thought this was an odd framing. He isn’t wrong to worry that caregivers may not have the best-designed experiences, which is why Universal Design, or design that everyone can use without impediment, is so important as a framework.

But rejecting conversations about DEI outright seems short sighted.

As a framework, I like DEI because it offers a reminder that there are people who get forgotten in the design process. It asks questions like “Who are we including?” and “Who are we leaving out?” So, my colleague’s concern about addressing the needs of the parent of a disabled person is exactly the type of inclusion issue that a DEI framework can help to identify.

It is also an area that I have been focusing on at IA Gateway with Shari Thurow and Bev Corwin. We are working on a model for a group persona that addresses the search needs of caregivers and people with a medical concern, whether a family member, acquaintance or someone in guardianship care.

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Resilient Identifiers for Underserved Populations WG Charter Approved

I’m pleased to announce that the Charter for the Resilient Identifiers for Underserved Populations work group (RIUP WG) was approved by the Kantara Initiative Leadership Council earlier this week. This work group combines the legacy work groups (WGs) from the Identity Ecosystem Steering Group, which was formed in 2011 to provide a trust registry under the White House’s National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace and absorbed by Kantara in 2018. I was a member of the UX Committee and wrote the User Experience Guidelines and Metrics document for the ID Ecosystem Framework Registry.

For the RIUP WG, two groups, Federated Identifiers for a Resilient Ecosystem (FIRE WG) and Healthcare ID Assurance (HIAWG) were combined to address identity assurance concerns for underserved people, who are often referred to as “vulnerable populations” by healthcare sector.

1) WG NAME (and any acronym or abbreviation of the name):  Resilient Identifiers for Underserved Populations Work Group (RIUP WG) 

(2) PURPOSE:  The purpose of the Work Group is to support vulnerable and underserved populations in America. At a high level, these populations include those with physical and cognitive disabilities, or who are homeless, impoverished, senior citizens, immigrants, incarcerated, institutionalized and otherwise underserved minority groups that need digital credentials to access online resources; particularly, online healthcare and financial resources. Without an easily reusable identifier, it is nearly impossible for these individuals to gain secure access to the resources and services that may be available to them. 

We will work, in collaboration with other private sector and public agencies towards establishing identifiers and access management (IAM) solutions that respect privacy, promote efficiency, limit redundancy, reduce barriers to use/adoption, increase interoperability, improve security, enhance safety and trust, eliminate identification errors, support resiliency, and achieve greater empowerment across the entire spectrum of online transactions. The RIUP WG will identify, coordinate, innovate and harmonize with ongoing and emerging identity initiatives, standards, and technologies, and communicate our findings to all relevant stakeholders, both in the US and, selectively, with other countries, under the leadership of the Kantara Initiative.  

(3) A SCOPE – Guidelines for Cultivating a User-Centric Trust and Promoting Adoption within Underserved Communities 

About “Underserved Populations”

Why does the RIUP WG use “underserved” rather than “vulnerable” when discussing the needs of healthcare populations? The US Health and Human Services tends to use “vulnerable” or “vulnerable and/or underserved” when discussing needs of people who require healthcare services but do not reflect the typical healthcare technology user.

In human subject testing, the category generally includes the elderly, poor, pregnant women, children, and infants, and recently, incarcerated people have been included in this description. But for the purposes of access to healthcare services, it also includes rural populations, those with permanent and temporary disabilities, indigenous peoples and others who may object to being described as vulnerable, yet need services that may be difficult to find, therefore rendering them “underserved.”

I had a conversation with Dana Chisnell, a founding member of the US Digital Service now serving as Deputy Design Director at US DHS, who convinced me to use “underserved” as a descriptor for identifiers. While there will still be “vulnerable populations” requiring special services, “underserved” puts the onus of care on the service provider rather than the traits of an individual which may or may not reflect their needs, abilities or level of personal agency. This work follows my research interest at the Internet Safety Lab where we are changing the conversation around digital harms, where the outcome of a service or lack of service can be harmful.

What’s Next?

RIUP WG will begin by creating guidelines for cultivating a user-centric trust registry and promoting adoption within Underserved Communities. We will publish a Use Case for Trusted Identifiers for underserved populations. And with a universal design strategy we will emphasize, highlight and prioritize user scenarios/stories from vulnerable and underserved populations to improve services for all users. We will test the use case and user stories across different verticals and persons of varying backgrounds and cultures. And we will create a dictionary that is harmonized with industry terminology.

There are a lot of initiatives that we will be watching. NIST is drafting 800-63-4 Digital Identity Guidelines, so we will work on comments on how to incorporate the needs of underserved people. The HSS Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) referenced trust registries in its work on Social Determinants of Health for Medicaid and we are participating in its information forums. We also plan to update the MAAS draft to incorporate recommendations from these efforts.

Lots to do and a great time to get involved.

Great teamwork!

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CPPA Stakeholder Meeting Discusses “Dark Patterns”

On May 5, 2022, I participated in the California Privacy Protection Agency’s (CPPA) stakeholder meeting, making a public statement about “dark patterns” which I urged them to redefine as “harmful patterns,” and suggested changes to their definitions of “Consent” and “Intentional Action.”

As Jared Spool says, we should be looking at the UX outcome of design decisions, not just the intent, as many designers adopt strategies or work with underlying technologies whose outcomes can be harmful to the technology user and other stakeholders. These UI patterns may not have the intent to do harm. Often the designers’ intent is to provide convenience or a useful service.

Take accessibility overlays that intend to provide a better experience for people with visual or cognitive disabilities but have the effect of overriding necessary controls. Even patterns that affect user behavior, like staying on a page longer, clicking on a link, accepting default cookie settings, etc. may be intended to provide convenience to users, but unknowingly to both the designer and the user, there are processes underlying many of these tools that share data and information about the transaction that can be harmful.

CPRA is defining what it means to consent to data collection and what an intentional user action is. It addresses “dark patterns” as an intentional deception, when often the digital harm is not intentional, yet is deep-rooted. We are hoping to make these harms clearer and provide guidelines for addressing them through our ISL Safe Software Specification.

Read more about the CPPA stakeholder meeting and my statement on behalf of the Internet Safety Labs (formerly the Me2B Alliance):

CPPA Pre-Ruling Stakeholder Sessions
Digital Harms Dictionary 2.0
ISL Safe Software Specification for Websites and Mobile Apps v1.1
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Me2B Alliance

Background

The Me2B Alliance is a standards development organization comprised of software engineers, policy analysts, UX experts, business and philanthropic leaders who are committed to giving individuals more say in how technology treats people. We are setting up a rigorous independent testing and certification program for websites, apps and connected devices. The Me2B Alliance is comprised of working groups for Me-s (the consumer), B-s (the business) as well as the Policy and Legal and Certification working groups. Together, we are setting the standard for Respectful Technology.

My Role

My role at the Me2B Alliance is twofold: I am leading up the Research and Validation practice to provide user experience and other research services to the various working groups, exploring questions around the consumer experience of their relationship with digital technology.

Secondly, I am developing the product integrity testing framework for digital technologies, in particular mobile apps and websites. This framework, coupled with data integrity and security testing, makes up the requirements for Me2BA certification.

User Research Methods

Ethnographic Research

I am engaging consumers in one on one conversations about their relationship with technologies they use in their day to day lives. Research questions range from and their understanding of privacy policies, terms of use agreements and other agreements they make implicitly by using a technology. for example, do users change how they interact with a website when they are familiar with the legal terms of the website? And would a score make a difference?

Preference Testing

I performed a series of tests of the certification mark to be used as a symbol of trust in connected digital technologies. This included interviews, focus groups, unmoderated 5-Second preference tests and surveys.

Product Integrity Testing

I developed a UX Integrity framework for the Me2B Safe and Respectful Technology Framework (now published as the Me2B Safe Specification). This framework was based on an applicaiton of IA heuristics to ensure that notices of data collection, use and sharing is Clear, Findable, Accessible, Credible and Communicative or understandable by a wide audience of human and machine readible or accessible devices.

Tools

Interviews and Focus Groups: Zoom, UserInterviews.com, Surveymonkey

Preference Tests and 5 Second tests: UserInterviews.com

Collaboration: Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Microsoft365, Trello, Monday

Artifacts

Safe Tech Audit: IA as a Framework for Respectful Design (April 23, 2022)
Conference Presentation: Information Architecture Conference 2022

Spotlight Report #5: Me2B Alliance Validation Testing Report: Consumer Perception of Legal Policies in Digital Technology (January 18, 2022)

Spotlight Report #3: Me2B Alliance Validation Research: Consumer Sensitivity to Location Tracking by Websites and Mobile Apps (November 5, 2021)

Shedding Light on Dark Patterns: A Case Study on Digital Harms (April 28, 2021)
Conference Presentation: Information Architecture Conference 2021

Webinar: Me2B Research: Consumer Views on Respectful Technology

Future Plans

We are planning to conduct three focus groups per month of consumers and digital product designers/managers. The research will continue to evolve our understanding of how consumers experience their relationship and risks with respect to digital technologies.

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On UX Deliverables, Accessibility, Education and Portfolios

I answer questions about UX, Information Architecture and other topics on Quora. A selection of these answers will be reposted on Medium with occasional, minor editing for clarity. I answered the following questions in June.

Is it worth learning UI or UX design? Do you actually use it to build a product?

Answered Jun 30

UX is used to design, strategize and build a product. UI is a part of UX. UI is used to give the product something a user can interact with (buttons, controls, calls to action, a familiar and comfortable layout). Studying users is an important part of product development. One of the biggest values of User Experience research is learning how people solve a particular problem and whether your product, or idea or inkling, is an effective solution. What problem does your product solve? How do people go about solving this problem today, before they know about your product? What are their pain points, either with an alternate solution or with one you already provide? In fact, a project may be abandoned due to what was learned during the research phase and that is a good, valuable result, versus spending millions of dollars on a product no one wants or needs. UX research will show you if you have product/market fit.

Is learning UX or UI worth it? Yes, if you are involved with designing a product, understanding the user’s needs and motivations is important. Are you the best person to learn it? Maybe. It depends on your role with product development. If you are starting with a small MVP or not funded enough to hire staff, you may be required to serve in more than one role in developing the product. These roles may include product management, design, research, coding, data management, account management, sales, security, AI, accessibility, vendor management, partnerships, etc. If you are working on a larger design team, you may specialize in an area of UX such as research, information design, information architecture, data visualization, interaction design, visual design, animation, etc. There are other Quora threads that explore the skills and deliverables for the various aspects of UX, so I won’t go into them here, but you can read a few of my prior responses:

What are the UX design deliverables?

What is UI testing?

Is 38 too old to start a UX/UI career?

Even if you are not specializing in an area of UX, any product development role can benefit from understanding the UX discipline and the insights and methods that inform product design. With these insights, a product manager can focus on aspects of the product that users truly want and need. A developer will understand what is being created and can code in a way that optimizes the design as well as the needs and abilities of the users. Business stakeholders will understand that they are investing in the right approach to serving their market. And that ensures success for the whole team.

What’s the most effective way for a nonprofit to determine UX strategy, design UI and develop pages, within a limited budget and time?

Answered Jun 30

Look for a university with a user experience design, product design or library and information science program and offer to be a test case for a student project. The department office will know if any of their professors are seeking projects for students to work on for a semester long course. Because they are teaching design and strategy skills you can be sure their processes and methodologies will be state of the art and well tested.

If you need faster turnaround than a semester course, prepare to either pay a lot more than you normally would for good work, or be willing to accept lower quality product. Good UX strategy, design and the research that informs the best fit and process takes time.

Is a UX design bootcamp such as RED Academy worth the time and money? Can I get a job if I self-teach UX Design on Coursera, edX or Udacity?

Answered Jun 16

I have heard mixed reports from UX hiring managers about design and coding academies. I guess it really depends on what you expect to learn and whether you are using the training as skills development or a replacement for a degree. Generally academies are great for learning new skills and developing a portfolio. What you get out of a six to twelve week course can vary. I have seen some concern that people who take courses at places like General Assembly are being encouraged to apply for senior design roles that they aren’t actually ready for. Or attendees who pass off student projects as if they were paid work. But other hiring managers may really appreciate the way a program ramps up an employees skills. (When I was at PwC long ago, I was encouraged to take design courses from NYU’s continuing ed department). At the other end, courses from Cooper U or IDEO are well regarded, but expensive and somewhat senior level.

I have also heard concern that a tools based training program is not a substitute for the kind of fundamental design education one would get in a degree program. However, UX designers are paid well even on a junior level, and with the way tuition prices are going at traditional colleges, I find I’m routing for the boot camps to become more like design guilds with apprenticeships and some kind of accredited certification. Center Centre offers a good model for a “master class” style of education. I would argue that if you do have a degree that is not in design (I have a BA in psychology and a MSLIS) and some work experience, all of that experience could be applicable to UX since UX is as much about understanding a business or consumer problem as it is about the solution design.

I don’t know the reputation of RED as it appears to be only in Toronto and Vancouver. So I would probably ask around at local Meetups or see if you can find out what kind of jobs graduates are getting. See if people in your LinkedIn network list the RED program have interesting jobs and contact a few for an informational interview.

As for self-teaching, I find courses at edX, Coursera and audacity to be a mixed bag. Some very good institutions and teachers produce good courses and some are not quite up to their name. Programs like the Interaction Design Foundation and UIE’s All You Can Learn Library are good because of the people behind the productions. And it’s much less expensive than attending a conference or workshop where the novelty of the experience and sheer volume of information can be overwhelming (though they are excellent networking opportunities. Our field is very welcoming).

How does a UX designer ask user groups to test their product?

Answered Jun 15

There are participant recruiting firms and online services that will help you vet and focus users for testing.

A client may have a department or group of employees they would like you to test the product on.

Guerilla testing is when you send teams out into the world and pull people aside to interview or try out a product.

For smaller questions you can pull someone aside at work or take a friend for coffee to get feedback.

I’ve also seen people recruit via social media, friends of friends, Meetup groups. I’ve turned a few Meetups into focus groups before.

You will usually want to offer an incentive to compensate users for their time. A small monetary stipend like $25–100 per session, depending on the length of time, or something smaller like Starbucks cards, sneak peek downloads, etc. Recruiting agencies can help with incentives.

Update: I wanted to add that I have a friend who also had good success with Mechanical Turk. I’ve never used them, but thought I’d add that since I’ve heard similar crowdsourcing methods can work for certain types of questions.

What are the ideal deliverables of a user interview?

Answered Jun 15

Pain points. What is it about the problem you are trying to solve or they way you approach your solution that users have the most trouble or frustration with? This can be issues with the solutions you are designing, those of a competitor or any other ways a user might be solpving problem or a need on their own.

Discovery. How are users finding solutions today? How are they finding your solution or solutions like yours? What are they reading, watching, who are they talking to? Where are ideal touchpoints where you can access that potential market?

Feedback. When you are interviewing users about your product or solution, what do they like and dislike about it? What is tolerable but could be better?

As for the format of the deliverable, video is very popular because it exposes nonverbal communication, such as body language, pitch, expressions, etc., that you don’t necessarily capture well in a written report. When delivering to the design team or stakeholders, you can pull out clips from interviews to illustrate a finding. Visualizations are also a good way to show a lot of data in a single artifact. Can you graph information, such as cost against another parameter like emotion? User research software and analytics companies have a lot of ways to visualize user research data.

What is the difference between UX and UI designer and web designer?

Answered Jun 12

A UX designer is concerned with the entire user experience. What motivates a user to use a product? What needs does the user have that causes them to try your product? What about the available solutions does the user find frustrating or incomplete? What about the product experience engages a user to use it again and again or to share it with others. They may create wireframe layouts, page flows, prototypes or focus on information architecture, UI design or more strategic documentation like user journeys and personas.

A UI designer is focused on the interface, specifically graphic controls (buttons, sliders, links), indicators, layout, error messaging, etc. and ensuring that they are visible, understandable, usable and accessible.

Web designer is somewhat of an archaic term. One might assume a web designer focuses specifically on browser based products, or that it is someone who does everything from design to development.

Are there any usability studies on alt text that people with visual disabilities find useful?

Answered Jun 9

The classic is Nielsen Norman’s 2001 study Beyond Alt Text: https://media.nngroup.com/media/reports/free/Usability_Guidelines_for_Accessible_Web_Design.pdf

This year Facebook released a study on Developing automatic-alt text for Facebook screen reader users

McEwan and Weerts did a meta study for British Computer Society in 2007 that mentions several alt-text accessibility studies http://www.bcs.org/upload/pdf/ewic_hc07_sppaper18.pdf

How would you start UX in a company with no design culture if you’re the only designer?

Answered Jun 8

Read Leah Buley’s The User Experience Team of One – from Rosenfeld Media. She covers how to set up a UX practice in a company and methods of evangelizing the benefits of UX design and building culture. She also has a few virtual lectures at UIE’s All You Can Learn Library.

I’m a freelance front-end web developer and digital artist/designer. Should I keep my portfolios separate?

Answered Jun 5

I treat portfolios in a similar way as resumes. Do I have one resume that I use for every job I apply for? No. Unless you are applying for a cookie-cutter, entry level position, you need a different resume and possibly a different portfolio for each application. Every company faces a unique set of challenges. Each job is an opportunity to solve a different problem, and each application needs a different sales pitch tailored to that problem. If the job requires someone with strictly design skills, highlight design projects in your resume and your portfolio. If it is a mix of design and development, include a mix in your portfolio.

By “portfolio,” I am referring to the document you send to the hiring manager. It can be something you send in an email or attach to an application system. It might be a PDF, a video, animated graphic, or link to Dropbox or your website, but it is tailored specifically to that job application. Your public website (or LinkedIn or Dribbble page) should showcase your best work in the areas that you most want to work, and ideally on projects where your client or boss would recommend you. If your ideal job is strictly design, these should be the projects on your public website. You can always have a link to other types of work more deeply in your site.

There are certainly skeptics who believe that Da Vincis and unicorns don’t exist, and most people tend to excel more in one than the other. I’ve known people who do quite well with both, but you probably have a natural leaning. Go with that. There is always an opportunity to show more if the hiring manager is interested in seeing more.

Is it possible to have functional requirements if you’re working in UX?

Updated Jun 3

Gathering user requirements is an essential part of User Experience research for most projects. Discovering how a someone uses a tool, whether it fits all of the user’s needs for a given process, where there may be functional gaps, etc. help to determine if planned functions meet these needs, if current functions need tweaking or whether new functions should be added. The document you produce may not be quite as formal or detailed as in traditional engineering or software development projects. It depends on the team, what role you hand off your work to, and how complex the function is. It could be a written report, a flow diagram, a user journey map, an infographic, an animated video or a combination.