📰 3 DESIGN ARTICLES
PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ARE DONE WAITING FOR ACCESSIBLE DESIGNS
- This article emphasizes the urgent need to make designs accessible today for people with disabilities, a process which normally takes anywhere from “two to five years” when initiated from the ground up.
- One of the first places to start is with color. The article cites British bank Barclays, which improved its visibility by changing the color of its digital touchpoints from cyan to light blue.
- “We cannot continue to unintentionally exclude the one-billion people living on this planet who are experiencing some form of disability.”
COLOR FOR BRAND DESIGNERS WORKING WITH PRODUCT TEAMS
- From lack of contrast to a limited palette, Sr Product Designer Katie Cooper breaks down the most common reasons why product designers often struggle to create interfaces that align with brand colors and guidelines.
- One solution to expanding a limited palette is by using a carefully crafted color ramp. With color ramps, product designers have more “branded” options for interactive elements, which can require as many as 5 different states (default, hover, focus, press, and disabled).
- “I often hear brand designers say that designing for accessibility holds them back creatively. This usually signals to me that a designer is operating at a junior level and doesn’t yet understand the business impact of their design decisions.”
MOVING TOWARDS AN IMPLICIT NOTION OF UX
- Historically, human-computer interactions were designed for environments where the human interacts with a computer in a controlled, focused environment. With the advent of tech-initiated interactions, however, Ricardo Dias speculates that the future of UX might lie in more “invisible” interfaces.
- What might these invisible interfaces look like? The author cites an assistive technology project for deaf people that translates auditive cues of the environment into haptic feedback that the deaf drivers can perceive.
- “What if the future of interfaces is making them invisible visually and practically?”
💜 PORTFOLIO INSPIRATION
Eric Gendron, a UX Academy graduate, uses his portfolio to showcase strong illustrative and visual design skills—as well as his personal creative work. The result: a strong portfolio that demonstrates both UX and UI mastery, which can align with a variety of product design roles.
Got a portfolio you love that you’d like to share with our audience? Email your suggestions to hello@designlab.com.
INTERESTING STUFF ...
- ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak (oh joy)
- Designing wearable technology
- Storytelling: don’t convince; inspire
- Building in an AI world: how user-led organizations will win
Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent. —Joe Sparano
FROM THE LAB
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