UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
January//20//2023
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Building Diverse Teams. Another article hailing from the Adobe Blog, this time around from author Chris Kelly on the very pertinent topic of diversity in the workplace and what does that term actually mean. The article reflects on what commendable leadership should incentivize in order to promote diversity, alongside other tactics to further promote that trait. These strategies include emphasis on transparency, shedding biases, adopting a different approach for Mentors, who should actually adopt more active presences in the path of their mentees, and also hiring with diversity in mind. Very pertinent for our current times, even with all the upheavals Technology companies are suffering. Highlight of the article includes:
“I believe that multiplier mentors don’t stop at coaching and setting up introductions. They make a commitment that goes beyond giving career advice — choosing to walk with their mentees side-by-side, living their lived experience, understanding their challenges, and working to overcome them together. Armed with that insight, these leaders can use their positions of influence to permeate broad change throughout the organization; multiplying the effect of what they’ve learned through the mentorship and creating similar opportunities for future mentors and mentees.”
2.
Coworking in the Future. Very interesting article from Ben Marks for The Next Web on the topic of future working arrangements. This is always a trending topic for a variety of reasons. On one hand the remote work discussion continues, as does the return to office and hybrid work paradigms that many organizations now have in place. Ben Marks highlights a few terms worth reading through, including Community Workspaces, and some actual successful examples of these new work paradigm initiatives, including Tulsa Remote, Neulandia, and also ConnectedHubs. It’s an article that definitely re-emphasizes the importance and inclusive stance of remote working, on that is all the more worth reading considering all that is currently happening. Highlight of the article includes:
“While the advantages of remote working have been widely acknowledged, it’s important to remember that it’s not always just the preferable option — it’s the only option. For some displaced people, remote work is the only way to generate a legal income. For individuals with physical and mental disabilities, a nine-to-five office job isn’t always possible. The same goes for parents who can’t afford childcare, and caregivers, such as a close friend of mine who looked after her terminally ill mother for two years. In the UK alone, hybrid working could bring back almost four million people who were previously locked out of employment (including 1.5 million disabled people, 1.2 million parents, and 500,000 carers), according to a report from Virgin Media O2 Business and the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR).”
3.
Best Practices for Closed Captioning and Subtitles. Another great article from Vitaly Friedman on the topic of how to properly tackle Closed Captioning and Subtitles, published on Smashing Magazine. The article looks at various aspects surrounding these topics, including where they differ, formatting and design conventions, search behaviors within subtitles and transcripts, allowing multiple languages to be simultaneously represented, to name but a few. It’s a thorough and fascinating article well worth reading through. Highlight of the article includes:
“One fine detail that’s always missing in customization settings is the adjustment of the position of subtitles and captions on the screen. Often video streaming companies elaborately adjust the position of subtitles depending on what’s currently displayed in the video. On Netflix, for example, Japanese subtitles sometimes appear on the side to not overlap any text or any important details on the video.”
