List: Accessibility in Design Resources
In today's digital age, design has become an integral part of our lives, shaping how we interact with technology and the world around us. However, we must ensure these designs are accessible to everyone, regardless of their abilities.
From practical guidelines to innovative techniques, here are a few resources helping designers make their creations welcoming and usable for all individuals.
BOOKS
Accessibility: Case STUDIES
REPORTS
Go Further Faster: How to Prototype Your Product to Protect Your Brand
Prototyping can save time and money, enables speed to market, and helps products go further faster.
“Time is money” is an oversimplification and common idiom rooted in truth.
Prototype your product to protect your brand. The risks are much lower than launching a flawed product, reducing risk, and avoiding detrimental costing-cutting measures. Product design prototyping can save time and money, enables speed to market, and helps products go further faster.
What Is Product Design Prototyping?
Product design prototyping creates a scale or full-size model of a product, which tests form, function, and feasibility. There are four categories of prototypes, each suited for testing different assumptions, that yield the following benefits:
Desirability — Form a compelling argument for what users want from a product: Verify the market demand.
Usability — Access product goals to avoid users abandoning your product or service: Receive faster user feedback for product integration. Identify errors (i.e., design, technical, and operational) and proactively strategize around product opportunities. Nimble companies increase the likelihood of getting to market faster with a robust prototype.
Viability — Clear a path for product validation: Validate future product feature work without “going all in” on capital investment. The path to product validation comes with practicality and a smaller price tag. With the advent of digital prototyping, you can go from CAD design to digital prototype in hours — at a fraction of the cost of physical prototyping.
Feasibility — Improve product cost-efficiency: Conduct an informed cost-benefit analysis with a line of sight into the product scope. Product design prototyping avoids costly mistakes and hedges against making expensive product changes. It is less expensive to make changes to a prototype than to make changes to products in the post-production stage.
Example: Product Board’s prototype (pictured above) led the way for a Slack integration built and deployed in 20 days
JustInMind’s prototype (pictured above) narrowed the team’s usability test scope and minimized product scope creep.
Pro Tips for Strategic Prototyping
Prototyping is a practical approach rife with pitfalls if not approached strategically. Ideally, teams can leverage prototypes to test quickly without the substantial product development costs associated with product development. Alternatively, prototyping without a purpose risks the onset of design debt and sinks of cross-collaborative teams.
Pro Tip #1: Design for simplicity. Taking a low-fidelity prototype and building on the user experience in the high-fidelity version solidifies basic functionality with less distracting feature work.
Design for simplicity: Overcomplicating a design prototype can cause additional turnaround times and costs. Opt for the lowest performance classification that stakeholders’ pain points as a baseline and a starting point.
Design to maximize prototype iteration speed: A best practice for enabling design is acquiring and following design governance guidelines.
Design for the maximum yield rate: Employ a first-pass yield calculator during the procedure to avoid scope creep.
Minimize the number of prototype iterations required: Numerous prototype iterations can cause high design costs, significantly impacting product operation costs.
The Big Picture: Product Design Meets Product Strategy
A robust product strategy defines a product vision and identifies inputs for realizing that vision. So, where does prototyping fit into product strategy?
A prototype is a working model that exemplifies the product vision and perfects the requirements needed to bring the product to market. Markets move fast, and more of your competition will experiment to improve their market position. It’s better to test and build than be left with an outdated business.
How I Work: The Hybrid Edition
According to Gallup, 53% of the U.S. full-time workforce operates within a hybrid work model that allows them to spend part of their week working remotely and in the office.
Coordinating a hybrid life requires organization for the remote and office environment. Traveling between the office, my home office, and on-site with a client is easy when you have the means to adapt to any setting.
Admittedly, my transition into hybrid life was rocky. I never had everything I needed or lost gear along the way (i.e., phone chargers, computer chargers, and endless cords to who-knows-what).
At networking events and around the water cooler, folks ask me, "How do you work hybrid and stay steady?" It's easy now, after losing items and making these staples on the go.
Here's what's in my bag:
Hiearcool USB-C Adapter - Plug into docking stations and set a great day in motion without a ridiculous number of cords.
EarFun AirPro 2 Noise Canceling Earbuds - Impressive noise canceling with a long-haul battery charge at a reasonable price. CNET and CNN consistently ranked these earbuds best in their class.
Team Gee Portable Triple Monitor for Laptop - A triple monitor setup on the go better ensures productivity, especially in offices that lack several docking stations and multiple monitor setups.
Jabra Elite 85h Noise Canceling Headphones - Because I am most often in an "open bull pin" concept office, I can go without headphones. Jabra Elite 85h are wireless headphones with a built-in battery that lasts up to 36 hours on a single charge for continuous use while accepting calls. These are a solid backup to my earbuds.
Rocketbook Smart Reusable Notebook - Instantly connects and stores my notes, UX doodles, information architectural sketches, and lists in the cloud with the free smart notebook app. I purchased a Rocketbook shortly after my Spring Cleaning 2022 unearthed 28 paper notebooks, a collection amassed over the past five years.
Pilot Frixion Ball Point Pens - Compatible with the Rocketbook and "regular" paper notebooks.
Lovevook Tote Bag with USB Charging - A waterproof bag that seamlessly transitions from coffee meetups to a client's office to a networking happy hour. Holds two laptops and helps me out when I am running low on a charge.
Note: This is not a sponsored ad, and I do not receive a commission for these recommendations. These are just amazing products that withstand turmoil in my bag from place to place.
Brave New World: 5 Trends in Product Innovation Post Lockdown
The following is a transcript of a keynote speech given at the 2022 Women in Tech Texas Conference in Houston, Texas. The reveals the top trends in product innovation coming to market as the result of consumers voicing their opinions during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The following is a transcript of a keynote speech given at the 2022 Women in Tech Texas Conference in Houston, Texas. The reveals the top trends in product innovation coming to market as the result of consumers voicing their opinions during the COVID-19 lockdown.
The title of this speech is a play on Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World, which I read during the lockdown. While people were making sourdough bread and yummy treats, I was reading dystopian fiction to read between the lines and predict the future, like Miss Cleo.
A Brave New World expects substantial scientific advancement and reproductive technologies, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation, and classical conditioning, among several other innovations. Huxley wrote a foreword in the book's republication in 1946.
Huxley writes, “If I were to rewrite the book, I would offer a savage third alternative between the dystopian and primitive forms of his dilemma would lie the possibility of sanity. Science and technology would be used as though they were made for man, not as though they were adapted and enslaved to them.”
Huxley’s words stuck with me, especially the last sentence. These words inspired this run-through of the newest technological advances that are human-centric. Technologists made a widget, consumers responded passionately, and they reinvented tech for them.
It has been over two years since we initially went into lockdown. Because we're all stuck in our homes, we spend enormous time on the internet. At its worst, the internet is an echo chamber because you don't challenge yourself; you risk hearing the same narratives repeatedly. But one benefit of it is we're hearing what people want.
After two years of internet consumption, we have heard what people wanted. More widgets are being made, and we see what people really desire. While some of it is pretty cool, the rest terrifies me.
I'm a Principal in Product Innovation at Slalom Consulting. I have been in product land for over a decade, working at startups and Fortune50 companies, mainly in tech. I'm fascinated by products. I was an unintentionally mischievous kid whose curiosity often ended in timeouts.
As we approach the mid-year of 2022, we’ve seen many tech products developed. I've selected these products because the yield is mainly in response to the end-user. As a product innovation buff, my superpower is experience design. And so, I'm always obsessed with the end-user.
One reason product design is so hard is that humans are complex. Humans are a confusing combination of all good in this world and sometimes the absolute worst. This makes it hard to predict what they would want. One of the biggest mistakes product designers make is assuming that the entire target market will accept a product they want (as an "N" of one). These five trends, however, are the Ns of millions of people:
Next-gen care
In-your-face privacy
Virtual entrepreneurs and shoppers
B2B Waste
Virtual influencers
The last one scares me the most.
Next-Gen Healthcare
This is something out of COVID that rocked the CPG industry. Many Gen Z, Millennial folks, and even eco boomers rejected wasteful products. An impact of that was that Gen Z has emerged as the next generation, making CPG look very different.
We’re seeing a zero-waste trend, which has birthed such inventions as zero-waste dental flossers, eco-friendly flossing devices, waterless hygiene travel kits, LCD toothbrushes, and oral beauty collections. Even though I'm a techie, I wanted to include CPG because I’ve always thought of it as being completely novel. I’ve never thought of an LCD toothbrush, and now I may want one for my birthday.
In-Your-Face Privacy
The trend is that data privacy and control are at the forefront of many people's attention. With many whistleblowers and things that have happened on the hill within the past couple of years, people are paying attention to how their data is being used. Interestingly, these conversations would typically occur on the down low, but many tech brands are putting it in your face.
Not too long ago, downloading an Apple app would provide a tracking/no tracking option. This rise in consumer empowerment essentially responds to people’s refusal to have their data out there. People have grown tired of data breaches, resulting in more need to control how their data is handled. High-profile companies like Apple are leading the trend here.
The (Mainly) Virtual Entrepreneur
A lot of platforms came out during COVID that was mainly for people who never even intended to go into a brick-and-mortar. They see no need to leave the comfort of their living room. And so, many platforms bounced up and around in response to empowering this type of human.
These types of entrepreneurs include virtual restaurant startups. You can prevent eating in a virtual restaurant, which I thought was interesting. There are zero startup costs, which makes these businesses ideal for most. eCommerce, work-from-home card rewards, and pandemic relief banking tools have received massive support from brands with a b2b focus. These brands understand it will serve them better in the long-term to have loyal customers, especially when the economy remains uncertain.
Shoppable and Walkable (Virtual) Room
This technology allows you to walk through a completely different reality with just a headset and your laptop.
The initial case study for this would be that a real estate company ships VR glasses to you so you can view a property without leaving your home. But this idea has evolved, and people are using it to watch HGTV. They want to see things they would buy as though they were part of their house. So, it's not enough to eat and drop stuff into your cart and do eCom; people want to walk and experience something. They get the value of buying something and the experience, which is pretty profound to me.
Even Walmart is joining this emerging shopping trend. Walmart Labs and Vudu are trying to do something similar but in 2D. They are working on an idea that allows you to buy things as you watch a show on the Vudu channel. You can purchase everything shown in a room. You can see a couch on your favorite TV show and buy it instantly. This is an exciting shopper experience because people want to see a more realistic product appearance before buying.
B2B Waste
I've looked at my footprints while reading Mr. Huxley. And as brands look to become more environmentally friendly, they're increasingly turning to businesses that specialize in waste reduction. So, everything from food to textile waste is now being addressed and repurposed for business-to-business (B2B) businesses. As consumers become more eco-friendly, they're putting more pressure on brands to do the same.
The Rise of the Virtual Influencer
This terrifies me. Primarily, in sheer vulnerability, it plays on my insecurities.
I feel like the Kardashians are avatars. But we now have virtual avatars.
This is Sophia.
Sophia doesn't even exist in real life, yet 57% of UK consumers love her. She looks natural, although her face is a little off. I find it interesting that companies create virtual avatars instead of employing a human being. It was hard for me to wrap my mind around that, and it made me uncomfortable.
But we have action figures and avatars, so it's almost the same idea. One reason brands like renowned fashion houses like Balenciaga and Dior have flocked to try this is because they can control the narrative a bit more. They can create a character or virtual influencer that mimics the consumer.
The Near Future
As a techie, I’m excited about the road ahead and grateful for the fantastic creations we’ve seen. I'm optimistic about myself, the consumers, and the tech world. I'm confident about innovation because it constantly keeps us thinking. And this is all coming from someone who’s overly pessimistic. I’m only ever optimistic about product innovation because I get excited about things that might surprise me.
We recently retired the Apple iPod after many years of being a large part of their hardware. Microsoft Zune’s best legacy is the iPod. The story is that Microsoft Zune predated the iPod, and it's an exciting story about consumers and tech innovation. It functioned almost like a remote control. It had arrows through which you would search through your music catalog like you were searching for files. It looks basically like a handheld version of your computer.
Jonathan Ive, one of the recent heads of industrial design at Apple, designed the touchpad to resemble a wheel to help the user scroll through files. His invention got little support until the testing phase of the product. A product tester picked it up and intuitively understood how the "wheel" worked. That's what Jonathan Ive was going for.
When I get excited about tech trends, even the ones that kind of scare me, I think about the ones that excite me. I think about the ones that could be the next Apple iPod. I get excited about innovation in that capacity because there's always something around the corner.
I'm excited about tech innovation, and I'm excited about the future. What excites me is that now, more than ever, consumers have a voice to say what they like and what they want. It's empowering.
VIDEO CLIPS: STEM Womxn Driving Innovation
Recently, I was invited to talk about women in STEM. Here are video answers to three important questions that define the careers of women in STEM.
Recently, I joined a panel of talented women to discuss the career trajectories of women in STEM. Computer Futures and the Flatiron School produced a memorable event featuring myself, Michael Robin Manning at Valkyrie; Janell Guzman at USAA; and Joyce Deuley at Geekdom. The panel was moderated by Nikole Phillips at Cloudflare.
The live stream event centered on three central questions. See my brief answers to each question featured below.