UI/UX Articles and Interesting Tidbits of the Week
June//10//2022
Here are some interesting finds on UI/UX of the week!
1.
Different Ways to Check a Website’s Accessibility. Hailing from Shaping Design and author Nick Babich, this article focuses on Accessibility factors to keep in mind when evaluating web driven products. The author details and highlights aspects such as writing descriptive code, making text more readable and legible, making sure there’s enough color contrast, designing keyboard friendly solutions, to name but a few. W3C also lists quite a few considerations on this topic, all of which reinforce the need to make sure web driven solutions are more accessible and inclusive. Worth reading. Highlight of the article includes:
“For a long time, accessibility was an afterthought. But that’s misguided for a few reasons. First, people with disabilities aren’t a small percentage of users — 15 percent of the world’s population experience some form of disability, according to the U.N. One in ten visitors of your website will have some disability. Second, accessible design ultimately creates a better experience for all user groups — not only for people with disabilities — because everyone benefits from inclusive design. Accessible design shouldn’t be an afterthought; it’s really a baseline requirement. If you don’t prioritize accessibility, you could also lose customers (they’ll choose better-designed products, obviously). You could also get sued. Lawsuits over digital accessibility for people with disabilities have been rising in recent years. As the Wall Street Journal mentioned, U.S. lawsuits alleging that digital products were inaccessible to people with disabilities rose 64% in the first half of 2021 from a year earlier.”
2.
Product Conversion Rates. Hailing from the HotJar Blog, this article is an interesting reflection on the topic of how conversion rates may not be telling the whole story when it comes to understanding customer journeys on applications. While the article is indeed a plug for HotJar itself, it nonetheless does surface the need for Designers, Product Team professionals, Go to Market team members, to name but a few, to devote time understanding what is the driver for users/clients to perform their tasks, and where their main challenges lie. Even if it is indeed a promotional article, it’s worth reading through for the questions it asks. Highlight of the article includes:
“Conversion rate measures people’s behavior once they’ve started using your website, app, or program. It provides you with a valuable overview of the proportion of users who make it through the full customer journey and the proportion that drops off along the way. Conversion rate is a potential goldmine for data-hungry product teams and digital marketers looking to measure customer engagement. But note the word potential: both product and marketing teams need more insight and context to extract real meaning from the conversion rate.”
3.
Measuring Performance of Typefaces, Part II. Second part of the article published by Thomas Bhom on Smashing Magazine, on the topic of measuring the performance of Typefaces. This second article is thoroughly documented and showcases a series of parameters on which the typefaces are analyzed and tested upon, including Kerning, Accessibility, Comprehension, Speed, to name but a few. It’s a fascinating read, considering the complexity of all the parameters the author identifies, and how the studies are in fact performed. Well worth a read. Highlight of the article includes:
“Test typefaces, try to do the test accurately and try to compare what you are designing with another typeface, to see where there are weaknesses and strengths in testing results with people and in different contexts and environments. How is it working (or not working) better than another typeface and in different contexts and environments?”
