UX-LX: Preventing Digital Harm Keynote and Searcher Behavior Workshop

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 preventing digital harm in connected products. This included a discussion of the relationship technologies have with consumers. I demonstrated techniques designers should adopt to mitigate the digital harms and dark patterns that could potentially violate that relationship. You can download my presentation below.

User Experience Lisbon 2023

On the first day of the event, I ran a half-day, pre-conference workshop titled “Designing Effective Search Strategies.” In this session, 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 empathy maps, search personas and mapping the user journey. I also introduced including group personas (2 of the groups took as a hint to discover cocktail lounges in Lisbon). 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!

“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 preventing or mitigating digital harm. Or lead a workshop on how to understand user search behavior. I can lead workshops solo or with my colleagues at 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

UX-LX: Designing Search Experiences in Lisbon!

May 24, 2023 9:00AM-12:30PM WET
Sensemaking, Search and SEO at UX-LX: UX Lisbon

Designing Effective Search Experiences

How do people locate and discover information online? Well, they type keywords into a search engine and then select items from the search results, right? This is the current mental model of how search/retrieval works for most users. But it’s not the only way people search, nor is it necessarily the most effective for the information seeker.

In this workshop, you will learn about ”Sense-making,” a search behavior that information architects, user experience (UX) and usability pros should not ignore. You will learn how individuals (and groups) plan and carry out search activities. How a searcher’s goals affect their sense-making tasks. And how accessible design and information architectures improve search performance. At the end, you you will understand how to optimize the user experience of your products and search engine results pages, so people get the information they need with less frustration. 

Topics covered:

  • Approaches to sense-making & information seeking behavior
  • Searcher goals that affect sense-making tasks
  • How accessible design and information architecture improve search performance
  • Where & how to implement search-related sense-making in user personas/profiles & customer journeys
  • How to optimize individual search listings for findability & sense-making
  • Search strategies for apps, video, voice and ChatGPT

Exercises:

  • Individual and group search exercise
  • Analyze a selected web page for accessible design and search optimization
  • Incorporate search behavior characteristics into personas and JTBD
  • App, video and voice search optimization
  • Discussion of new and emerging forms of search experiences

Attendees will learn:

  • How to identify search behaviors and incorporate them in personas and JTBD tasks
  • How to architect & optimize different types of search experiences
  • How accessible design can improve search experiences for everyone
  • How search strategy differs for websites, apps, voice, video and emerging experiences


Any requirements for attending: None

Information Architecture Conference 2023

I am also hosting a full day workshop on Safe Tech Audit: Applying IA Heuristics for Digital Product Safety Testing in New Orleans on March 28 at IAC23: The Information Architecture Conference. Registration

IAC23: Safe Tech Audits in New Orleans!

March 28, 2023 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM ET
Safe Tech Audit: Applying IA Heuristics for Digital Product Safety Testing at IAC23: The Information Architecture Conference

Are you creating products that respect the needs and autonomy of your users? Are you concerned about how GDPR, CPRA and the proposed ADPPA data privacy regulations might affect your digital product? Would you like to learn how to evaluate your digital products for safe technology behavior?

It’s possible to measure ethical behavior of technology, and Information Architecture heuristics provide a useful testing framework. Building on the Safe Tech Audit presented at IAC22, this full day workshop will discuss the role of usability and application of Abby Covert’s Information Architecture Heuristics in technology development standards from the 2011 National Strategy for Trusted Identity in Cyberspace to the Internet Safety Labs’ ISL Safe Technology Audit. You will learn to use the framework to perform a product integrity test of a web technology of your choice.

In Part One, you will learn:

  • What are technology specifications and how are findability, understandability, accessibility and usability factors in developing them?
  • How do the various data privacy laws affect the use and control of personal data?
  • How can Information Architecture inform the design of safe and respectful apps and websites?

In Part Two, you will

  • Perform Safe Technology audits to measure product safety of a website and compare different kinds of technologies (news sites, social media, university websites, retail stores, etc.)
  • Select a website or app of your own to test and develop a plan to address any negative results (you won’t be required to share the results if you don’t wish to)
  • As a group, we will create an artifact to present on IAC23 Poster Night.

UX-LX 2023

I am also hosting a workshop on Sensemaking, Search and SEO in Lisbon on May 24 at UX-LX 2023. More details soon! Registration