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2024-2025 Nomination for Triangle UXPA Executive Council Offices

You can nominate yourself or someone else, with their knowledge and participation, until 11:59 PM, Friday July 26th, 2024. Descriptions of the offices are on our website at https://triuxpa.org/Triangle-UXPA-Board-of-Directors-Roles and more general volunteer position descriptions at https://triuxpa.org/page-1843504. 

You must be a member of Triangle UXPA to run for office and to vote in the election. The 2024-2025 term runs from August 14th, 2024 through July 1st, 2025.

Note: This year that some of the roles are not options. Current council members are staying for a second-year to help build continuity in our association's offerings.

View the nomination form here. 

Archana Shah and Cindy McCracken facilitated discussion of AI for design and research at Lexis Nexus on May 10, 2024. What follows are Cindy's meeting notes. 

Summary

Based on the provided notes, here are the summarized themes from the discussions: 

Successful Uses of AI for UX 

AI has been successfully used to organize documents, enhance productivity, and conduct competitive analysis. Examples include Firefly AI for meeting summaries and Google Bard for enhancing user experience. AI's role in job hunting and itinerary planning also showcases its practical applications in everyday tasks. 

Failures in Attempting to Use AI for UX 

Failures noted include issues with AI-generated bias, hallucinations in content generation, and the inability of AI to cite correctly. Challenges also arise from AI's unpredictability and lack of transparency, leading to trust issues among users. 

Key Things to Keep in Mind While Designing the UX of an AI-Based Product 

The importance of trust calibration, maintaining user privacy, and ensuring data protection are emphasized. Designers are advised to consider the legality of content and integrate AI in a way that enhances rather than complicates the user experience. 

Ethics of Using AI 

Ethical concerns include the pace of development outstripping the establishment of general regulations, copyright and trademark issues, and the ethical implications of AI-generated content, especially when adapted to artists. The potential for AI to reinforce existing biases is also a significant concern. 

Future of UX in AI 

The future discussions revolve around AI complementing rather than replacing human roles, with a focus on maintaining the human element in UX design. The necessity for ongoing education and adaptation to new tools is highlighted, with a call for UX professionals to embrace changes and utilize AI as a supportive tool rather than a replacement. 

These themes reflect a broad spectrum of insights, from practical applications and successes to ethical considerations and future prospects for AI in the UX field. 

Tools

Various AI tools like ChatGPT, Bard, and tools for itinerary planning such as Wander.ai are mentioned. Specific tools for tasks like organizing documents, meeting summaries, and boosting productivity are also highlighted. 

1. ChatGPT - Used for various tasks including content generation and interaction enhancements. 

2. Bard (Google Bard) - Utilized for querying and generating responses based on a large dataset. 

3. Firefly AI - Noted for meeting summaries, helping to condense and recap discussions. 

4. Figjam - A tool used for collaborative design and brainstorming sessions. 

5. Perplexity.ai - Mentioned for its use in generating content and providing citations. 

6. Goblin Tools - Tools for productivity, possibly involving task management, great for focus. 

7. Wander.ai - Specific for itinerary planning, demonstrating AI’s utility in travel and scheduling. 

8. UX Buddy - A design tool integrated within wireframing practices to enhance user interface development. 

These tools are applied across different stages of UX design and management, from initial brainstorming and design to content management and summarization, highlighting the diverse applications of AI in enhancing user experience processes. 

Triangle UXPA is introducing a new feature: guest blogs by TriUXPA members who have insights to share! Our first guest blogger is Kyra Catabay, product designer at Micah Group. She attended the recent FluidMemory AI demo.

If you're a member of TriUXPA and would like to contribute a blog post, reach out and name your topic.

Generative AI is a hot topic, and forward thinking designers and researchers are figuring out its possible impact on our workflows, the industry, and how it might shape our digital and real worlds.

We had a packed room at the new TEKsystems office in Raleigh to demo FluidMemory—a cutting edge AI tool that streamlines once manual research processes. The demo was led by founder Piet Kruithof. We started off with an overview on AI, examples of prompt engineering, and learning more about FluidMemory. 

What is generative AI?

Broadly, generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that can create text and other types of context in response to a prompt. It sources from vast amounts of content available on the internet, comprehending language, patterns, styles, and structures from human communication.

ChatGPT is OpenAI’s GPT model for generating text in a conversational context. You can write messages and receive a response from the model, much like a conversation.

Generative AI can create new content and often serves as a jumping off point to help you get started. It can also serve as a way to automate tasks that were once very manual, a problem that FluidMemory solves for researchers. 

A good prompt is gold 

Piet started off the demo with an introduction into ChatGPT4.0 and prompt engineering. Creating a great prompt is essential for using generative AI. In the demo, we worked together to craft a prompt for buying a car in 35 accurate steps. 

Here are some tips for crafting good AI prompts that we used during the demo: 

• Experiment and iterate: Try different prompts and iterate based on the model’s responses. Small changes can sometimes lead to big differences in responses.

• Add context: Include background information or constraints to help the model understand your intention. Better context can lead to more accurate and useful responses.

• Review and refine: Review the model’s response and refine your prompts based on the output. Save great prompts for later!

• Ask the model to think step by step: Try asking the model to provide a detailed or step-by-step explanation. This can help with providing coherent and structured responses.

• Specify format: If you want responses in a particular format (e.g. list, spreadsheet, or even word cloud), specify it in the prompt to guide the model’s output.

There have been instances of AI creating inaccurate or even fabricated responses (sometimes called “hallucinations”). As we use AI, we should be aware of its limitations and its potential to create unusual and incorrect responses. It’s important to double check the output when working with AI.

If you find a good prompt, don’t forget to save it for later!

FluidMemory: a solution inspired by short-term memory loss

As the founder of FluidMemory, Piet’s team is developing a software solution aimed at automating research, hypothesis testing, and presenting results for students and professionals alike. FluidMemory is powered by Google Cloud and utilizes ChatGPT along with GPT 4.0 to aid in data analysis.

It’s currently targeted for researchers (such as grad students), but its use case can definitely expand into other means and professions. It can provide a way for a researcher to capture, store, and keep information, as a compendium of data for current and projects. You might read a publication in grad school, and then use FluidMemory to recall that exact article and piece of needed information 15 years later. FluidMemory can also analyze vast amounts of the data that you’ve collected--saving you valuable time.

Piet spoke candidly about a short-term memory disability that led him to creating FluidMemory and his hope that FluidMemory can help other folks with these types of memory challenges in the future.

You can check out FluidMemory here:https://fluidmemory.ai/

Co-Authored by Dr. Guiseppe Getto and Dr. Suzan FlanaganAs a college professor who does research into UX and content strategy, I’m very interested in the conditions local UX folks work in. That’s why, starting in 2017, I’ve partnered with TriUXPA to conduct a UX salary survey. Our survey has done more than just track salaries, however. It’s also tracked what UX professionals in the Triangle Area do for a living, including what skill sets they use. It’s also tracked basic demographic information including age, gender, ethnicity, and education level. Finally, it’s tracked what industry local UXers work in (i.e., finance, education, computers, etc.) and where in the Triangle Area they work (i.e., Raleigh, Durham, Cary, etc.).

In addition, we’ve started doing some analysis to compare trends, such as whether work experience correlates to a higher salary. You’ll see that analysis represented below in the “trends” sections.

If you attended the TriUXPA UX Y’all Conference in 2021, you might have already heard me present on some of these findings with my co-researcher, Dr. Suzan Flanagan. 

If not, or if you’re just curious to learn more, I present below the findings of the TriUXPA Salary Survey for 2021!

Age

The majority of the UX professionals in this study were between 26 and 45 years old, with 41.4% of them between 26 and 35 and 28.2% of them between 36 and 45. Only one person reported being in the over-65 age range. Figure 1 shows the breakdown of the participants’ ages.

Gender

Nearly two thirds of the survey respondents (there were 174 responses) self-identified as female (64.9%). Slightly more than one third of the respondents self-identified as male (33.9%) and 1.2% self-identified as nonbinary.

Ethnicity

Survey respondents were overwhelmingly White (79.3%). In comparison, in the 2017 survey, 90.4% identified as White. Other ethnicities represented in the survey include the following: Asian (13.8%); Black or African American (3.4%); Hispanic or Latino (2.3%); multiracial (1.2%); and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander (0.6%). One person did not report their ethnicity.

Education

Nearly half the UX professionals (48.9%) reported that the highest degree they held is a bachelor’s degree. More than a third of them (37.9%) hold a master’s degree and 7.5% hold a PhD. None reported having only a high school diploma or GED. Four reported they had completed some college, while two said they have associates degrees, two have graduate certificates, one has a professional degree, and one has a technical or vocational degree.

Full-Time UX Work Experience

The largest group of survey respondents has been working 2–7 years in UX and most have been working full time during those years. (See Figure 2 for a detailed breakdown of respondents’ work experience.)

Industry

More than three quarters of these survey respondents work in five industries: software (37.4%), healthcare or medical (12.6%), banking or finance (12.6%), IT consulting (8.6%), and education (5.2%). The remaining respondents work in the following industries: insurance (4.6%); computers or hardware (4.6%); retail or e-commerce (2.9%); advertising, marketing, or public relations (2.3%); non-IT consulting (1.7%); government (1.7%); publishing or media (1.1%); and eight other industries (less than 1% per industry).

Work Location

The survey asked UX professionals where, within the technology hub, they work. The majority reported working in Raleigh (43.1%). Durham (25.3%) was a distant second. Cary and Morrisville were tied for third place with 9.2% each. The remaining survey respondents work in other cities (8.6%) or Chapel Hill (4.6%).

Base Salary

When the survey was conducted in 2017, the combined average base salary was $144,754, and the median salary was $90,000. In 2021, the combined average salary for full-time and part-time UX professionals was $111,347 and the median salary was $109,000. The 2021 base salary figures for full-time and part-time workers are shown below.

Full-time (36+ hours) workers, (148 responses)

• Average: $117,940

• Median: $110,500

• Lowest: $50,000

• Highest: $195,000

Part-time (< 36 hours) workers, (23 responses)

• Average: $88,226

• Median: $90,000

• Lowest salary: $33,900

• Highest salary: $174,000

 For both full-time and part-time workers in this study, the base salary ranges are similar. The difference between the highest and lowest full-time salary was $145,000 compared to $140,000 for part-time UX professionals.

Job Title

The survey participants reported 95 different job titles; of those, 70 were held by one participant only. The most common job titles were UX Designer (22), Senior UX Designer (17), Senior Product Designer (9), UX Researcher (6), and Product Designer (n = 5).

Within the software industry, 29.7% of the participants had variations of UX Designer job titles (19) and 10.9% held the job title Senior Product Designer (7). The job title Senior UX Designer appears most often in the banking and finance industry (5; 23.8%) and in the healthcare and medical industry (4; 18.2%).

Job Tasks

The UX professionals in this study performed a diverse range of tasks. Each respondent reported performing at least three of the 19 different tasks listed on the survey. More commonly, the UX professionals reported being responsible for 5 or more tasks.

Most of the UX Designers and Senior UX Designers reported that their jobs involved every task shown in Figure 3. In contrast, most of the Senior Product Designers did not perform animation or UX writing tasks; those tasks were more frequently performed by UX Researchers. Figure 3 shows the frequency of other tasks performed.

Hours Worked

The majority of the survey respondents work full time (86.5%). In this study, we’ve defined full time as working 36 or more hours per week. The respondents typically work 40–45 hours per week. Only 23 of the respondents work part time (13.5%).

Teamwork

Most of the survey respondents (85.6%) work as part of a UX team. The composition of teams skewed slightly in favor of men. Of the 133 respondents who work on UX teams, 31 reported equal numbers of males and females on the teams; 50 reported a higher number of females on the teams, and 52 reported a higher number of males on the teams. The number of nonbinary team members were not analyzed because the data were not reliable.

Trend: Base Salary by UX Work Experience

As one would expect, base salaries generally increase with years of experience. In this data set, that prediction does not hold true for UX professionals with 21 or more years of UX work experience (see Table 1). It is unclear whether these lower-than-expected base salaries are anomalies or whether bonuses offset those salary differences.

Trend: Base Salary by Gender and Education Level

Table 2 shows the potential effects of education and gender on base salary levels. In some cases, the data are insufficient to make inferences. For example, only two respondents reported associate degrees as their highest education level: one male and one female. While only two UX professionals in this study identified as nonbinary, notable difference in salaries for those with bachelor’s degrees indicate further investigation is needed.

Trend: Base Salary by Gender and Company Age

Table 3 compares base salaries for each gender working at companies of different ages. Again, we must be cautious when interpreting the data due to sample sizes and other factors that may not be obvious. For instance, only 5 people worked at companies less than two years old.

Trend: Base Salary by City

Table 4 presents the average base salaries for each city in the area studied. While the $20,466 range between highest and lowest salaries may seem minimal, the cost of living and cost of housing varies considerably between these cities. For example, housing costs the least in Durham and the most in Chapel Hill. Overall, Cary is the most expensive place to live [31]. UX professionals who commute from less expensive locations will need to factor those added transportation costs into their evaluation of the net value of potential salaries.

Trend: Base Salary by Industry

UX work appears to be more lucrative in some industries than others. At face value, the data in Table 5 suggest that start-ups offer the best opportunities in terms of base salary; however, only one survey respondent reported working for a start-up. At the other end of the salary spectrum is AV, and again, that figure represents a single worker.

Trend: Base Salary by Age and Company Age

Tables 6A and 6B show average base salaries by worker age and by company age. This data includes part-time and full-time workers salaries. The lowest figure represents one part-time worker. The intersection between company age and worker age appears to have little impact on salaries across all groups.

Trend: Base Salary, Gender, Company Age, and UX Teamwork

Finally, our analysis revealed a few notable findings for UX professionals working on teams in specific situations:

• Those working on teams at companies less than 2 years old and between 2 and 5 years old earned significantly higher salaries.

• Those who performed UX work at companies that were 11 or more years old worked on teams that included two to three times more women.

• Those who worked for companies with 2,501 to 10,000 employees worked on teams that included twice as many men as those working in companies with 1,001 to 2,500 employees.

• Those who worked on UX teams typically earned more than those who did not work on teams.

Trend: Breadth of Knowledge

UX professionals are expected to perform a wide variety of tasks. Most of our respondents reported leveraging a wide variety of UX-related skillsets, ranging from user interface design (73.6%) to user research (81.6%). Sizable minorities of participants also engaged in less common skillsets such as UX writing (40.8%). This could indicate that UX professionals are incredibly diverse professionals who use a wide variety of skills in their work lives and don’t particularly specialize.

Conclusions: A Skills-Diverse, Well-Paid Field

It’s clear that UX, at least in the Triangle Area, is a profession that requires a lot of diverse skill sets, but that is also well-compensated. And as people gain more experience and education, their wages also seem to go up. These are the types of trends we want to see in any healthy, professional field.

One open question that we are pondering on the academic side of things in light of these findings is: how can academics help train new UX professionals when they rely on so many skill sets? One answer: partnering with members of industry. If you are a UX professional and would like to be involved in educational initiatives, please feel free to email me at gettog@ecu.edu.

Regardless, we hope this blog is useful in your UX career!

Ask The Experts is a series in which we ask design leaders from our community common questions from UX professionals or those seeking a career in UX. This month we're covering how UX research fits in at local organizations. 

Yes, we do have career paths and standardized levels within each. Each level contains information such as key responsibilities, expectations, and skills/experiences, complexity, and expected impact at that level. UX Design has its own career path, its associated levels, and their descriptions. Individual contributors and managers have separate tracks as well. The company has programs to help (especially new) employees to navigate the career paths and make sure that they understand different job families in the company and that they assume the most fitting role as they grow professionally.

Design Managers have the main responsibility of providing timely feedback of job performance, and identifying employees’ strengths, interests, growth areas, etc. Design Managers set up ongoing weekly or bi-weekly meetings with their Designers to ensure that discussions happen, and issues are addressed in a timely fashion. More formal quarterly meetings for setting goals, check-ins and reflections are separately scheduled so that employees and their managers have dedicated time to discuss performance, career levels, and growth opportunities. The conversations around promotions and what are expected of the employees can happen either in the ongoing meetings or the quarterly meetings.  The general principle is that the employee should already be performing at the next level well enough before promotion is made to that level, so that employees can transition into the new level with confidence and a higher degree of success. Design Managers take time to explore and discuss the employees’ interests, strengths, and passion, and try to match that with the available projects so that Designers can shine and maximize impact.

Huifang Wang, Senior Manager of User Experience Design 
SAS

Career growth at Red Hat is at the very center of our culture and values. As life-long learners, associates are encouraged to grow in their careers and influence by taking on new challenges, enrolling in Red Hat University and LinkedIn Learning courses, expanding their skill sets, and accessing Red Hat's global tuition reimbursement program. As a part of Products and Technology (PNT) at Red Hat, UXD associates follow the Engineering Promotion Framework (EPIC) career growth model created and managed internally by a broad group of associates from across PNT.

The EPIC model includes document templates, timelines, and processes for promotion across all job levels, for both individual contributor and manager tracks. Competencies describe expected contributions at each level for such things as Business Impact, Scope of Work, Planning and Execution, and so on. Conversation helpers are document templates that lay out the expectations of a current role and the next level - allowing associates and their managers to identify gaps and steps needed to achieve a promotion. The process is created with fairness and equity in mind and provides a solid foundation for career progression.

Ask The Experts is a series in which we ask design leaders from our community common questions from UX professionals or those seeking a career in UX. This month we're covering how UX research fits in at local organizations. 

How does UX research fit in at your organization?

User research comes in different forms with the essential idea of understanding users through their expectations, their physical and organizational environment, and their feedback on design solutions. At SAS, in addition to creating design solutions, User Experience Designers also have the job of conducting user research, enabling them collect first-hand information from users. SAS has a User Research Lab where usability tests and user interviews can be conducted, recorded, and analyzed. A database of users and customers is maintained, and surveys are often sent out to users for specific products or areas. We also have a Research Ops program that aims to empower all Designers to conduct, track, and share research findings across products, areas, and personas over time.

 

Product teams typically care more about the design solutions we create, but good designs need to be grounded in user research. User Experience Designers plan the time and space for user research. We often partner with product managers, customer success managers and other customer facing teams to gain access to and build partnerships with key customers and users. It is often challenging to fit user research into the tight schedules necessitated by the agile development processes that we use. However, we find it helpful to plan and start larger research efforts ahead of time and make incremental progress during development stabilization sprints to continue with user research. It is also important to streamline user research efforts so that we can turn around results faster.

Huifang Wang, Senior Manager of User Experience Design 
SAS

At Red Hat, the UX Research team lives in a centralized User Experience Design (UXD) team under Engineering that supports the entire product portfolio. This puts our team in a unique position to break down silos, make connections across products and consider the end-to-end experience. The researchers work closely with designers, developers, and PM to conduct generative and evaluative research that influences the user experience with data and user insights. It’s exciting times. The research team has recently grown from a team of 5 to a team of 15 in the past year. They are a diverse team with different perspectives and skillsets, exploring new partnerships and maturing research practices in our organization.

User research is increasingly part of many teams at Lenovo.  For the Next UX team specifically, user research is an integral element of our work.  It is woven into our mission and cyclically into our processes.  Research goals and methods vary based on whether the project is in a discovery phase or validation phase (or in between), but we are always building our knowledge of users and their context.   We have UX research specialists who lead the way while we also work to democratize interest and participation in the research among collaborating designers and stakeholders.   Ultimately, user research is about steadily improving our insight to guide project direction and any recommendations into the business. 

Aaron Stewart, Director Next UX & UX Research 
Lenovo

We consider ourselves a digital agency, though most projects involve websites or web applications. What we pride ourselves in doing, however, is solving business problems. To successfully solve problems, user research is indispensable. Without an understanding of the needs and motivations of users, user experience design, and the functionality that drives it, would be based on guesses.

Among the methods we employ are online user surveys, client interviews, user interviews, and analytics review. 

While we don’t want to undertake projects without access to user research data, we don’t insist on performing it ourselves. Some of our clients perform their own, while others employ third-party agencies for strategy and marketing that perform the user research.

While user research is essential, we acquire the information through a variety of methods and sources.

David Minton, Managing Partner 
DESIGNHAMMER

What is accessibility?

Accessibility is the practice of making a website usable by as many people as possible. This often means providing more than one way to access information or complete a task on the website. People with disabilities may not be able to read, hear, or click a mouse. This may be a permanent disability, or a temporary disability caused by injury or environment. 

Similar to making accommodations for changes in technology like mobile phones or tablets, making websites accessible for people with disabilities should be considered equally essential.

Another way to think of accessibility is providing everyone with an equal opportunity to use your website no matter what their ability.

Why should a website be accessible?

Just as it is wrong to exclude someone from a physical building because they are in a wheelchair, it is also wrong to exclude someone from a website because they have a physical impairment.

Beyond the human concept of the right thing to do, it is the law in many places. Many lawsuits have been filed and won against businesses with websites that are not accessible. In the U.S., the American with Disabilities Act requires businesses to comply with web accessibility standards.

According to the Center for Disease Control, 61 million adults in the U.S. (1 in 4 adults) report having some form of disability. Accessibility ensures that all potential users, including those with disabilities, can access website information. This, in turn, can increase the customer base and market share.

Improving accessibility for people with disabilities has the added benefit of improving the experience for people using the website in less-than-ideal conditions. Some examples may be using a mobile device, being in low light, having a slow network connection, being in a loud or distracting environment, glare on a screen, etc. Implementing accessibility best practices also improves the usability of the site for all users. 

Types of disabilities

Making a website accessible includes considering several different types of disabilities (both permanent and temporary) that may impair someone’s ability to use the site.  Many people think of accessibility as adding options to a website for blind or deaf people. In fact, there are a wide variety of disabilities that affect individuals, and each requires its own assistance.

Below are categories of types of disabilities.

• Physical or Motor Skill disabilities – Limitations of muscular control such as tremors, paralysis, involuntary movement, or missing limbs. This may limit the ability to use a mouse or keyboard. Permanent examples are amputation, arthritis, and paralysis from a stroke. Temporary examples are repetitive stress injury, a broken finger, or an arm in a cast or sling.

• Visual disabilities – Limitations on sight such as blindness, low vision, or color blindness. This may limit the ability to read or see a video. Permanent examples are blindness, color blindness, or macular degeneration. Temporary examples may be forgotten glasses, eye injury, or low-light conditions in the environment.
• Hearing disabilities – Limitations of hearing such as complete or partial deafness, or an inability to hear certain frequencies. This may limit being able to hear alerts or audio content. Permanent examples are total deafness, or partial loss from a medical issue or injury. Temporary examples are an injury, bandaged ears, or noisy conditions in the environment.

• Cognitive/Neurological disabilities – Limitations in processing data. These users may have difficulty remembering information, may be easily distracted, and may have learning disabilities that affect how well they read text. Permanent examples are ADHD, Dyslexia, or an anxiety disorder. Temporary examples are emotions, task related stress/anxiety, or distractions in the environment.

• Seizures – Some users may be prone to photo-epileptic seizures, so that flashing, strobing, and blinking graphics are a danger.

Best Practices

Accessibility should be part of design and development of a website from the beginning. It is more difficult and costly to address accessibility after the fact. Below are some guidelines for how to approach making a website accessible.

The W3C WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) POUR principles create the functional accessibility necessary for people with visual, auditory, mobility, and cognitive disabilities to access website content, and applies to all platforms.

The principles to be followed are:

• Perceivable – Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive. It can’t be invisible to all their senses. (Example: For a blind person, a screen reader should be able to perceive a button.)
• Operable – User interface components and navigation must be operable. The interface cannot require an interaction that a user cannot perform. (Example: For a person who can’t use a mouse, there should be a way to perform actions using the keyboard.)

• Understandable – The information and the operation of the user interface must be understandable. The content or how to perform the operation cannot be beyond their understanding. (Example: Using clear and simple text to explain required actions.)
• Robust – Content must be robust enough that it can be interpreted reliably by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies. As technologies and user agents evolve, the content should remain accessible. (Example: new accessible keyboards for paralyzed users.)

Some good guidelines to consider for making accessible digital content are below.

For Physical impairments:

•     Provide information in multiple formats. For example:

   Provide visual access to audio content (captions, transcripts).
   Provide transcripts for audio content.

• For mouse actions, also provide a keyboard-only solution.
• Provide strong color contrast and sufficient font size for content.
• Do not rely on color alone as a navigational tool or to differentiate items.
• Functionality should be accessible through mouse and keyboard and tagged to worked with voice-control systems.
• Images should include Alt Text in the markup/code, and complex images should have more extensive descriptions (possibly captions or a summary in an accompanying paragraph).
• Sites should have a Skip Navigation feature for screen readers.
• Consider 508 testing to assure your site is complying (Section 508, Rehabilitation Act of 1973).

For Cognitive impairments:

• Deliver content in more than one way, such as by text-to-speech or by video.
• Provide easily understood content, such as text written using plain-language standard.
• Focus attention on important content (possibly with headings or placement).
• Minimizing distractions, such as unnecessary content or advertisements.
• Maintain consistent webpage layout and navigation across the website.
• Use familiar web elements for easy recognition, such as underlined links in blue.
• Divide processes into logical, essential steps with progress indicators.
• Make website login/authentication as easy as possible without compromising security.
• Make forms easy to complete, with clear error messages and simple error recovery.

Sources / Related Reading

What is accessibility? - Learn web development | MDN (mozilla.org)  

Types of disabilities: Understanding accessibility: Accessibility: Indiana University (iu.edu)

Accessibility Basics | Usability.gov

Accessibility Principles | Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) | W3C

Types of Disabilities | Usability & Web Accessibility (yale.edu)

Web Accessibility Laws in the U.S. (rev.com)

Home | 18F Accessibility Guide

Beyond Accessibility: Treating Users with Disabilities as People (nngroup.com)

Accessibility Standards - Santa Barbara City College (sbcc.edu) 

3 Great Reasons to Make Your Website Accessible - SitePoint

Accessible Websites Are Better for Everyone (And Better For Business Too) (forbes.com)

Ask The Experts is a series in which we ask design leaders from our community common questions from UX professionals or those seeking a career in UX. This month we're covering interview techniques. 

What are some common mistakes design candidates make when interviewing for a position? What should they avoid doing to give the best impression?    

I cannot remember how many interviews I’ve been to, where the interviewers did not have the candidate’s resume at hand, or the candidate fumbled through folders and files to find/load their portfolio. For in-person interviews, have paper resumes ready to hand out and if possible, load/project your portfolio/sample work up even before the interview starts. For online meetings, pre-load your portfolio/work, and know how to share your screen in the meeting software. Within the limited interview time, minimize logistical errors so that the interview can focus on your experiences, skills, and conversations to get to know each other.

Another common mistake I see, especially for younger design candidates, is to treat an interview as an exam, show what you got, answer questions, and get out. Although it is very important to show and discuss your work, I cannot over emphasize the importance of studying the job description so that you can relate your experiences to the job requirements, point out alignment of your work preferences to the group/company’s culture, get to know the company’s business and suggest ways you may contribute. In addition to finding the right experiences, skills and personalities, the employer would like to see that the candidate is interested in the job, asking good questions, and overall an excellent fit for the organization."

Huifang Wang, Senior Manager of User Experience Design 
SAS

I find it disappointing when a candidate doesn't have questions for us. Interviewing is a two way street meaning I expect that the candidate explores if the company is a good fit for them too. Being curious tells me you're interested in the company and that you're being thoughtful about your potential future decisions. "

Leslie Hinson, Manager of User Experience Design 
RedHat

 One common mistake is that candidates feel the need to justify why they intend to leave their current employer. While this will likely come up in the interview process, it's not relevant in every round. It can also leave a negative impression if the candidate complains about their current work environment. Even if your complaints are justified, no one wants to work with someone that seemingly has a negative attitude!

Other common mistakes happen during the design challenge component of the interview. A design challenge will typically present a fictional design problem, and the UX design candidate has a limited amount of time to work toward a solution.

There are two common mistakes that I've noticed: 

1. The candidate jumps right to the UI design 
2. The candidate doesn't do any UI design 

The design challenge's intent is for candidates to demonstrate their thought process, so candidates will want to show how they would make sense of an ill-defined design problem. Every UX designer has a different approach, but it'll often include some user definition, brainstorming, and flows. It may not be easy, but candidates should at least show some low-fidelity sketches. The sketches are essential to help demonstrate how the candidate translates requirements into UI design."

Andrew Wirtanen, Principal Product Designer
Citrix

 Avoid seeming like you are only showing your wares and responding to questions.  Interviewing should be a two-way street.  So, be curious and interested.  Ask about the challenges and opportunities the interviewers see in the role, what they like and don’t like about the offerings you’d help design, what type of culture they strive to create, etc.  When considering candidates, we worry about personality fit and genuine interest as much as knowledge and skills.  Of course, show what you’ve done and respond to what is requested.  But, converse and informalize the interview process so both sides get to know each other as potential teammates."     

Aaron Stewart, Director Next UX & UX Research 
Lenovo

 While portfolios are important, many talented UX designers don’t even make it to the portfolio review phase at DesignHammer. When hiring a UX candidate, being a brilliant artist is not the foremost qualification. We need staff members who can review and follow instructions, as well as communicate in writing with clients and coworkers.

At DesignHammer, we provide detailed job descriptions, application instructions, and selection criteria as part of our job listings. All candidates are instructed to submit a cover letter—a candidate screen which identifies candidates who have read the complete job post and followed the directions it contained. However, the cover letter also provides a means for candidates to illustrate strengths that don’t necessarily fit into a conventional resume or portfolio. 

While cover letters that address all of the points we request and display the candidate's ability to communicate effectively in writing will advance them to resume and portfolio review, candidates that customize their cover letter will make the best impression. 

To aid candidates in submitting complete applications, we use an online application tied to our applicant tracking system. I can’t count how many applicants have entered their resume (a second time) as their cover letter to get past the form’s error checking, nearly ensuring they will not advance to the interview round. Even worse are the candidates that upload a document stating “Not applicable” or the like as their cover letter. How can I trust a staff member to work independently, follow instructions, and communicate with clients, if they are not willing or able to do so when they are trying to impress the hiring manager?”

David Minton, Managing Partner 
DESIGNHAMMER

Ask The Experts is a series in which we ask design leaders from our community common questions from UX professionals or those seeking a career in UX. This month we're covering portfolios. 

What is one thing UX candidates can do to improve their portfolios?    

I’ve seen a lot of portfolios with polished (interactive) designs. But it is not obvious how the designer came to that solution nor what problem is the design trying to solve. This makes the work look superficial, lacking depth and context. 

If the main audience of your portfolio is potential employers, my one recommendation for improvement is to show process: Highlight what problems you are solving, for whom (users), who else was on the project team, and the interim deliverables (hand drawings, wireframes, user journeys and feedback, etc.) along the way, not just the final design. This gives viewers more insight into your ways of approaching a problem, collaborating with others, and designing/researching along the spectrum of high-level visions on one end, and detailed specifications on the other. Think of your portfolio as a story to tell your journey of coming to the final designs or solutions that are being show cased – use your design skills to make it informative, fun, and easy to understand!"

Huifang Wang, Senior Manager of User Experience Design 
SAS

 UX design candidates typically do a decent job describing the overall process they went through on a project. But, I've found myself asking the same question repeatedly in interviews: Who did you collaborate with, and what were your contributions?

As Jared Spool always says, "design is a team sport." When I'm interviewing a candidate, I'm trying to figure out what it'd be like to work with them.

A lot goes into product design, starting with understanding both the user needs and the business needs. Yes, your portfolio should show the overall design process from initial requirements to final deliverables. But, make sure to mention who you collaborated with and why. Even if you were doing everything from initial requirements gathering to coding, there was probably a point where you collaborated with a stakeholder or two."

Andrew Wirtanen, Principal Product Designer
Citrix

 UX now involves such a broad range of expertise and companies vary in how they specialize (or don’t) their UX roles.   So, it’s important both employer and candidate are expressing the type of UX in play.  Resumes are often a record of where someone has been and lean on where someone wishes to go.  A mission or passion statement may be in there, but often at a high-level.  So, I recommend clarity on the types of UX you’ve done and the types of UX you hope to pursue.  This is particularly important if you want to pivot focus or generalize more.  I’ve found the forward look may not fully come out until a phone interview occurs.  But, some filtering of candidates has potentially occurred by that point."     

Aaron Stewart, Director Next UX & UX Research 
Lenovo

 While a portfolio certainly should be a showcase of your results, final results alone are not enough. I'm always pleased when I see a portfolio that also tells me something about your process - how you arrived at those results. If the portfolio doesn't show me any process, it
1)leaves me wondering how much of that was done by yourself and how much as collaboration, and
2) I then have to ask all the questions to arrive at that answer. A portfolio that shows me process as well as results goes to the top of the pile, and one that shows me how user or collaborative feedback was incorporated to improve the result gets bonus points!"     

Randy Earl, Experience Manager
Atlantic BT

 One simple thing to improve a portfolio is to make sure that each portfolio piece tells a story. A story has structure - beginning, middle, end - and so should a case study. What problem did this project set out to solve? Over the course of the project, what were the complications or hurdles you had to overcome? Finally, how did it end up? What was the impact of the project?

Imagine telling the story of the project to a friend or family member and try to capture some of that energy in your professional writing. Case studies shouldn't be long or verbose, but they should not feel "flat." There should be characters, motivations, actions, surprises, and ultimately, a satisfying conclusion."     

Erik Johnson, Co-founder and Designer 
Purpose UX

 My recommendation for candidates looking to improve their portfolios is to present their work in the form of case studies. Provide the problem to be solved, any restrictions impacting the project, the solution, and results, if possible. The ability to solve problems, particularly within externally imposed limitations, while showing measurable results, is what differentiates a UX designer from an artist.

Case studies provide greater insight into the capabilities of the candidate—the ability to use visual communication to deliver measurable results within the constraints imposed by clients. The copy of the case study also allows candidates to show their ability to communicate with words, in addition to visuals.”

David Minton, Managing Partner 
DESIGNHAMMER

Ask The Experts is a series in which we ask design leaders from our community common questions from UX professionals or those seeking a career in UX. This month we're covering career trajectory. 

What advice would you give a mid to senior level designer who is wondering whether they should go into management or continue as an individual contributor?    

Even though senior designers and design managers can sometimes share similarities, the most unique aspect of a manager’s job lies in the responsibility of supporting and growing other designers, and a design team.

Depending on the size of their team, a design manager may sometimes take on some individual contributors’ responsibilities of doing design/research work. However, what truly sets a design manager apart is that they are responsible for not only their own projects but also the design team that reports to them. This responsibility makes it essential for them to understand the strength and characteristics of each designer on the team in order to best match them with the goal of the design group, while also putting them in the best possible position to succeed, removing obstacles and cultivating relationships when needed. Hiring and mentoring new talents to ensure that they fit in the team, get up to speed, and excel on their new jobs. Can you see making other people successful an essential part of your job? In my opinion, this needs to be a resounding yes if you would like to become a manager.

A manger needs to be ready to step away from detailed design work, and shift their attention to more strategic problems, guide their team by providing timely and relevant feedback to their work. Managers typically do have opportunities to see a wider range of products and teams, to influence design direction of a larger part of the organization. If you enjoy connecting teams, initiating collaborations towards common goals, and sharing best practices along the way, you may want to consider being a manager.

Lastly, people management skills are a must for a good manager. Be prepared to address personnel issues and getting better at resolving conflicts involving your team members and/or teams that they work with. These frictions can turn into opportunities if managed well, or future obstacles if poorly managed. A manager who is good at resolving these issues have a better chance of keeping the group morale high, setting them up for success, and creating space for the team to grow."

Huifang Wang, Senior Manager of User Experience Design 
SAS

 Every company has various responsibilities for managers and individual contributors, so this will depend on your situation. Also, career growth isn’t always linear. For example, maybe you’re a product designer that is interested in switching over to product management.

Let’s say you’re a mid to senior-level UX designer who works in a company with two distinct career tracks: management and individual contributor. Regardless of the track you choose, you’ll have responsibilities that may blur the lines between the two. One important step is to identify your interest areas. Are you interested in people management? Do you want to get more into UX strategy? What kinds of projects do you enjoy? Ultimately, your path will be different depending on how your organization assigns responsibilities. 

My advice is to pick the path that you feel most closely aligns with your interest areas. Your interests will change over time, so I would not view it as a final decision.

Related: The individual contributor path is typically not as well-defined at organizations, and you may have to do some work to help define it. I’ve enjoyed reading Staff Design because it’s helpful to read about others’ experiences."

Andrew Wirtanen, Principal Product Designer
Citrix

 This is a big choice for any professional and should be an on-going dialogue.  Have that dialogue with your manager and mentors.  Have it with yourself.  The biggest question to keep asking: why might you want to manage others?  Do you like the idea of helping others navigate their careers?  Do you like guiding work (and those who do the work) at a higher level?  Do you seek status?   A range of selfish and more selfless answers is likely.  But you should be clear on exactly why you would want to manage.  And, without question, test drive it first.  Mentor someone, sponsor an intern and be a team lead so you can better answer those questions.  From my view, successful design managers want to help others in their careers and are comfortable guiding others through their design work (vs. overtly guiding the design).  If you’re uncomfortable coaching a colleague or prefer to be designing the details, an IC path may be best.  I know wonderful design managers.  I know others that probably shouldn’t be managing.  And, I know many who have great careers as an IC.  Be clear on what creates rewarding work for you."     

Aaron Stewart, Director Next UX & UX Research 
Lenovo

 I would suggest anyone considering a shift out of a design role and into management (or any other role for that matter) to do an honest reflection on what types of activities give them the most sense of value in their career. If it's promotions, increased income, and leading teams, a shift to management can be the right choice. For designers who gain more value out of the experience of designing and creating and enjoy taking an active hand in design work, management roles can be stifling and frustrating. I'd suggest for anyone considering a move like this to reach out to mentors or other professional connections in management and ask questions about what their daily work is like and how they experienced the change in role. Ultimately, it's about how you want to spend your time while at work and that's an intensely personal question that will vary for each individual."     

Erik Johnson, Co-founder and Designer 
Purpose UX

 Career growth is hopefully a goal for any professional, but at what cost? The decision to move from a hands on creative role to a more management focused role can be a difficult one. 

Having the option to enter management often assumes working for a larger organization that requires a person with a design background in a management position. Such a promotion comes with the ability to play a more influential role in project direction, and typically greater compensation. Sole practitioners also have a similar level of influence, though their projects tend to be more limited in scope, and often the positions (particularly in staff roles) offer lesser compensation.

Many professionals, both in and out of the design field, eschew management, preferring to avoid the added responsibilities as well as the opportunity to stay “hands on” in their vocation, which hopefully they at least enjoy, if not love, practicing daily.

But, just because you could, doesn’t mean you should move into management. I always consider the Peter Principle, the management concept that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to their “level of incompetence,” before offering advice on this topic. Just as some legendary sports coaches were not necessarily standouts on the field, some All Stars fail to translate their in-game achievements to coaching others. Similarly, a talented designer may be exceptional at their craft, but not have the organizational or social skills to effectively manage others, while a less skilled designer may grasp design principles just well enough to be able to communicate through their work, while brilliantly managing other designers.”

David Minton, Managing Partner 
DESIGNHAMMER