Joseph Bramall

Really enjoyed this podcast episode about the state of design leadership and craft, and what might need to be done. https://buff.ly/3Wfm51r

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If you're looking to up your accessibility game, your search is over. Join my colleague and accessibility guru Grant for some insights and guidance next Wednesday!

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Many organisations create inclusive personas to represent disabled people. I know the UK Government's Digital Service do, and they are people who really know what they're doing. But ... these artefacts tend to focus on the disability, and the assistive technology people use to overcome barriers. Not so much on who they are, their goals, and what they're trying to achieve with their businesses and their lives. On people as people. Just, y'know, peopling. We've done lots of research over the years with disabled people who run, or are in positions of authority in businesses. It's obvious that disabled people are under-represented in the upper echelons of business because of the cultural, physical, and technological barriers they face. The statistics tell us that with barely any interrogation at all. It's equally obvious that the people we do talk to – who have managed to create and sustain successful businesses despite these barriers – embody a selection bias. They've already been able to overcome those hurdles. Nevertheless, I think context matters – and in some contexts, focusing on what people can't do is less important than highlighting what they go out and do anyway, despite all the difficulties they face up to every day. Anyway, I wrote up some thoughts on how to include some #accessibility pointers into #personas without making them the main focus. (And, yes, I use gender-neutral names and pronouns for our personas. None of our research has revealed any significant difference between them.) https://lnkd.in/edbnZGQp

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Human Centred Design People are frustrated with everyday things due to ever increasing complexity. The solution for this is Human - Centered Design (HCD), an approach that puts human needs, capabilities and behaviours first and then signs to accommodate those needs. Human centered design is a philosophy. It means starting with a good understanding of people and the needs that design is intended to meet. #humancentereddesign #HCD #users #designapproach

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I've been working on some service design patterns with Dave Skinner for his project Design Patterns for social housing - https://lnkd.in/eC9p5RRv A service design map is often inaccessible - the designers will have worked hard to capture all the stages but the map will be a PDF or a diagram which doesn't easily resize to fit your phone. Your audience can't resize the text. It can't be read by screen reader software, either. As a solution: try making the map into an HTML table with two columns. For a mobile view, make each row resemble a card. Sorted! 😎 Hire interaction designers to find ways of putting content online. 😇 Transcript: 1. A numbered service stage with a representative icon Describe the stage in detail. Capture any pain points and improvement ideas. "Include verbatim quotes from research." Optional: include an emoji for how the person is feeling at this stage. Backstage - a policy or legal factor (grey) Backstage - a technical factor, such as a database (green) Time-based process (blue) Pain point or blocker (pink)

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So glad I managed to attend UX Brighton on Friday. Top notch speakers for an obvious but tricky theme: UX & AI. Some personal highlights: - Pablo Stanley's contagious energy, humour and eye-candy slides somehow managed to show really practical "why did I put this button here" advice. Proper Design class! >> check his Lummi app https://www.lummi.ai/ - Maggie Appleton perfectly encapsulated why AI is breaking the free Internet and what possible (mostly-depressing) futures await us. PS: it's all here >> https://lnkd.in/ek6wJ6V8 - Glenn Jones's text-to-functional-UI demo left some speechless. A glimpse into a future of use-once UIs generated on the fly. - Hannah Beresford's solid research work laid out why AI tools don't work yet and what to do about it. - Will Taylor's historical framework was the perfect conference intro and a useful tool to clarify "which AI for which situation". A few reflections: - There are identified ways make chatbot-style AI UIs more usable... but the single box to "ask anything" is far from the being the most useful interaction paradigm. - AIs are rubbish at context, societal norms and verbal cues. It's best to think of them as a smart alien rather than a human. - Data-led products, like AI-driven ones, need to be user tested in context, with real data. Smoke & mirrors prototypes or static mockups are pointless. - It did made me want to work on AI products and try more AI tools! - Also, not one mention of sustainability?? It feels like the elephant in the room. Overall, such an awesome day with Joanna Rusznica Laura Pison David Man Jess Judge Rachel Ward Kounnas Caroline Gardiner Andrew Wood Rosie FitzGerald Carolyn Letts #uxbri #uxbrighton #uxbrighton2024 #ai #ux #design

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Introverts vs extroverts and then all the nuance and folk who sit in between those two ends of the scale. To be a good design leader (or a leader more generally) do you need to be one or the other? Both have different strengths, values and likely different ways of approaching things. I think the two ends of that scale will likely have quite different styles but I would argue that there is no one size fits all approach. Interested to see what folk think. #design #leadership #people

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Accessibility is getting more important in websites. Let me or us know if you would like an accessibility audit done on your website.

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A very useful and handy Accessibility Checklist For Designers (PDF: https://lnkd.in/e9Z2G2kF) by Geri Reid and Dave Musson It provides practical guidelines for integrating accessibility into design from the outset.

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I've created an interactive version of Lou Downe's Good Services scale. Simply enter your scores against each of the 15 principles and it will generate a little report for you. #ServiceDesign

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Help needed! So many design leaders are struggling out there in their job search I can see from conversations that many aren’t really talking about it / sharing their challenges and worries They internalise, feel alone and often in a hole. I’d love to try and help (hence this post) But need your help also 👉 If you are (or know of someone that is) looking for a Head of Design, Design Director, VP etc please send me a message. I’ve got a bunch of amazing leaders I’d love to connect you with! 👉 Please like // comment // tag // share this post and get the message out 👉 I’m starting to look at creating spaces / conversations for leaders currently out of work to come together. If you are interested in being a part of it, please let me know There is power (hopefully!) in community 💪🙌 ———— P.s I am aware it is not just design leaders struggling, this is just written off the back of them being the primary group I engage with week to week EDIT: Form link now in the comments if you are a Design Leader looking to be involved :) #Design #Leadership #DesignLeadership

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Talking about #accessibility workshops and European Accessibility Act. Mostly about not getting trapped by sense that checklists/standards will save the day. More about extending and building personal and communal capabilities. 2 workshops. One in extending the sense that skills people already have are accessibility skills when reframed. One on extending individual sense of perception and capacities to understand personal divergence and its relationship to communal diversity.

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A sentiment I hear from experienced designers and students is that stakeholders are somehow bad (or don’t get ‘design’ in some form) and should be avoided. Feared, in fact. I don’t think this is constructive and a bit short sighted. Stakeholders are regular people doing the best job they can within the context of their work. Take the time to understand their perspective. What is success for them? How can design help them achieve this? Take a moment to explore the feedback loops that shape your organization, and discover how thoughtful design can make a positive impact. Leaders are looking for solutions not an education on design. If you can help them succeed, you will gain their trust. After that, you won't need a seat at the table. Design is also not unique. Every role in an organisation is trying to increase its influence - Marketing, Communications, and even Engineering (I have been a part of all these groups). Every role has its unique perspective of what success is for them and how it benefits the organisation. Instead of fearing stakeholders, they should use a design approach. Listen more, use their language, tell compelling stories and help them succeed. Be nice…and stop referring to them as “Stakeholders”.

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Great insights from our UX Director on the impact of UX Audits. Taking the time to set the right course for a successful project seems obvious—but it’s often overlooked or underfunded. A UX Audit can be instrumental in achieving project success, whether it’s implemented as a standalone task or part of the discovery/definition phase for a full-scale project. Don’t miss out on the chance to start your next project the right way! #ux #uxdesign #uxaudit #umbraco #digitalexperience #digitalagency #website #websitedesign #designagency #websiteagency #CMS #umbracosCMS #creativeagency #digital #uxstrategy #digitalstrategy

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🔥Is Accessibility important for product and service design in South-East Asian (SEA) & Malaysia?🔥 In SEA countries, especially Malaysia, UI/UX is the core aspect for product and service design for designers. From my design circle, accessibility is not mandatory for company to consider for product output. Although there are some UX Designers I know, they at least do some accessibility check using Figma. ❓️What are the BARRIERS for Accessibility as integral for product and service design? ♦️Firstly, Accessibility is rarely integral as part of the design process, partly there is no needs and mandatory enforcement such as ADA (American Disability Act) and EAA 2025 (European Accessibility Act) to adhere for products and services designed for public. ♦️Secondly, there is no access for People with Disability (PWD) easily and conveniently for user feedback. ♦️Thirdly, Accessibilty is deemed as bottleneck for product development, not to mention accessibilty testing with PwD. ♦️Fourthly, the numbers of PwD is not significant that impacts P&L and business revenue. ❓️For Malaysian & SEA Designers, do we need to care about Accessibility? 💡Since the European Accessibility Act (EAA) is a European Union directive that requires certain products and services to be accessible to people with disabilities and the elderly, anyone who design products for EU needs to aware about this. 💡We can start having the Awareness on Inclusive Design and Accessibility testing (at least using automated tools). 💡As SEA countries is closed to Japan, Korea and China (the promising super-economy nation), we will never know there will be a mandatory requirement for exporting our products and services there one day. 💡I had the privilege taught my former Interface Designers who were PwD (hearing-impaired and physically challenged) in a university 15 years ago. As an Industrial R&D Liaison for Interface Design, I collaborated with Malaysia Association for the Blind (MAB), Malaysia Federation of the Deaf (MFD), BAKTI-MIND, and brought the awareness of Inclusive Design as part of the design curriculum. Due to their phyisical challenges, my design students had become my 'teacher' because they themselves had to involved with their own community to produce design output for their final-year project that had industrial partnership. Suggestion is to work closely with PwD to learn their struggles (pain points) and needs. 💡When I fully worked in industry at Intel, armed with the understanding of Inclusive Design, I had the privilege to be a Mentor for Intel Accessibilty Innovation and conducted Assessibility Testing with various assistive technology users on #Fable. I reckon the convenience and user-friendly platform designing for accessibility testing, especially with their established PwD and Assistive technology users. 🔥EVERYTHING STARTS FROM US!🔥 We can create a better Inclusive and Accessible world by our own action. #accessibility #inclusivedesign #pwd

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Think of #DoubleDiamond as place to grow rather than a process or journey to cross thru. Design Council released its Systemic Design Framework this week https://lnkd.in/e6ftRQbG I designed and tested a number of workshops for this toolkit to understand how it worked with design professionals and climate activists. The adapted version of Double Diamond in the framework works differently in shifting from a very tight business-oriented design thinking process to a more broad sense of community and place making for change. The image here is from one workshop for #CampDigital in Manchester and the use of the tree model continued into workshops for #UXCopenhagen. Using the systemic design framework as a foundation to do more with more people while using fewer resources and planning for degrowth is good. Using Permaculture principles helped with thinking of time in a place not movement thru a place. I’d recommend the Entangled Activist and Closing The Loop as books to read. #DesignThinking #SystemicThinking #ClimateCrisis #SystemsThinking #EcologicalThinking.

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