Introduction
You’re listening to a podcast from Media Access Australia. Inclusion through technology.
Philip
I’m speaking with Heidi Laidler, a user experience designer with Media Access Australia. User experience design is the process of enhancing user satisfaction by improving the usability, accessibility and overall satisfaction provided by an interaction between a user and product, service or piece of communication. And in the web and digital space, this is becoming ever more critical for organisations to engage staff, consumers, members or other stakeholders.
Philip
What made you get into user experience in the first place Heidi?
Heidi
To be honest I hadn’t really even heard of user experience until a couple of years ago. I read about the bachelor of design computing at Sydney Uni and really loved how it sounded. I knew I wanted to pursue a pathway that was a balance between technical and also creative. And it really encompassed quite a few things that I was already interested in, like advertising and web design and even a little bit of psychology. And then once I started the degree, I realised that user experience is a really integral part of websites and everything digital at the moment.
Philip
What are some of the implications of bad user experience?
Heidi
So having studied some marketing and advertising, I really think of it in terms of cutworm experience and digital experience as being one and the same. The majority of customer business interactions have already moved into the digital space. I suppose you can look at online shopping as a good example. Retailers have always invested in money in ensuring their stores provided a positive experience. From the visual aesthetic layout, staff, music or even smell, you think about all these things and they’re the same things that we need to be thinking about, or very similar things that we need to be thinking about, when we’re providing a digital experience. We think about the layout of the webpage, the colours that we use and the way the people are going to interact with it as well. So it’s very similar, it’s just really we’re moving to the digital instead of the face to face. The crux of it is, if users don’t have a positive experience on a website it reflects badly on a brand or organisation. Or if the user experience is so bad, then the user may not even be able to interact effectively with the website and it may not be able to even serve its purpose at all.
Philip
Right, and that would be a fail.
Heidi
Yeah, exactly.
Philip
You’re coming to the end of your university degree in design computing at Sydney University. What are some of the biggest differences you’ve found so far between studying user experience and working on web audits and investigating the user experience of websites under construction?
Heidi
It’s been really surprising so far actually. User experience is such a new and upcoming field, it’s really disappointing that there isn’t more emphasis on accessible user experience. Really if you think about it, user experience and accessibility should go hand in hand. Essentially I think of accessibility as a somewhat ramped-up version of user experience. It might be slightly harder to achieve, but really you’re opening up your website or digital experience to a wider set of users and then that should really be a priority. Accessible design is really just creating a positive user experience for a different set of users and I found it really surprising in my studies that it doesn’t play a bigger part, especially considering the number of users that are ostracised by inaccessible designs.
Philip
Okay. You mentioned that accessibility seems to be often overlooked in user experience. Why do you think that is?
Heidi
I think primarily there’s a misconception that accessible design means ugly design. Which really isn’t the case. Most of the ways we can make a website accessible don’t have any impact on the website visuals or aesthetics, such as correct use of heading tags or alternative text. It’s also just not considered from the outset of a design. User experience involves carefully considering a user group and how to create a design to suit them. One of the key parts in this is developing personas. But we never make personas with disabilities. So if we don’t consider this user group from the beginning, how can we make designs for them as well.
Philip
Right. Well can you share with us briefly some of the critical factors that contribute towards a good user experience in the web and digital space?
Heidi
There are plenty of factors. Really every aspect of the website needs to be considered. Of course the visual aesthetic is important. Going back to my store metaphor, just like a beautifully designed store makes for a better shopping experience, so does a beautiful website. One thing I noticed on a lot of websites is there’s too much content crammed onto one page. One of the key elements of cognition is that people comprehend content better when it’s separated by blank space. Doing this also just makes for a nicer, more minimalist look. One of the other key factors of user experience is not trying to reinvent the wheel. Although you want to have a unique and different website, there are certain conventions in websites which users are accustomed to. Like certain icons and buttons and elements of the website being positioned in certain areas of the screen.
Philip
So they can easily find it, easily navigate.
Heidi
Yeah exactly, and they know where to look. Users expect to be able to navigate a website in a way that they’re used to. While breaking way from the formula may seem like a good way to create a unique website, it’s likely to confuse users.
Philip
Yeah, that’s the downside. And I finally Heidi, what are some of the key fundamentals that organisations need to be aware of in order for them to be able to provide an excellent user experience to their users.
Heidi
I think the most important thing is to consider the user experience from the beginning. To find your primary users and keep them in mind throughout the whole design process, and keep coming back to those users that you’ve established in the beginning. Understand that there is more to the user experience than just your website or app interfaces. While the digital may be the most considered, it’s also important to include other interactions a user may have with your organisation just like a purchasing journey, user experience is a journey as well. And the interactions at each touchpoint should be considered. In terms of resources, there’s a couple of really good ones out there. Jacob Nielsen’s design heuristics are considered to be the standard and are a really simple point of reference to make sure that you’re ticking all the boxes in terms of user experience. And of course, understand the WCAG guidelines. They’re not just important for creating accessible designs, adhering to these principles actually allows organisations to create experiences which are better for all their users.
Philip
Well look, thank you for your time today Heidi.
Heidi
No worries, thanks for chatting with me.
Conclusion
This podcast was presented by Media Access dot org dot au.
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