Ben Weedon

We got our first website accessibility audit in quite a while done recently. It's important not to be daunted by the report you get back – we are thoroughly working through it to make the improvements needed. We're trying to design and develop things in a robust way, and a nice bonus was some big recently shipped work had no known issues. It just shows that when you build accessibility in from the start it makes a huge impact. #accessibility

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Interesting article on rethinking the role of UX Teams. https://lnkd.in/eN7SQHEm #design #designthinking #designbuild #designstrategy #product #producctdesign #productmanagement #productstrategy #designprinciples #innovation #designers #digitaltransformation #ux #uxdesign #uiux #uidesign #designinnovation #application #software #softwaredesign #usability #userresearch #research #usercentereddesign #productleadership #uxwriting #designsystems #empathy #interfacedesign #usabilitytesting #userexperience #productdesign #accessibility #ui

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🎈💥 Busting top 5 myths about #accessibility by Barclays 1) My users don't complain about accessibility, so we must be doing O.K. 2) But fixing accessibility is expensive, isn't it? 3) But 'accessibility', it's not really my job, is it? 4) The market is just too small to justify all this time and effort. 5) But accessible design means boring design.

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"Updating our language gives us an opportunity to be clearer about what we really mean, and have more nuanced discussions about sub-categories of bad patterns. For example, we could talk about: - deceptive patterns (this is the option now favored by Harry Brignull, who coined the original term) - inaccessible patterns - confusing patterns - discriminatory patterns - exclusionary patterns All of these terms provide more detail, and help people to understand more about the specific problem we’ve encountered with a solution."

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I'm in a UR, UX bubble, so I have a question about life outside... Do other specialisms in technology, for example Business Analysts or Solution Architects to name but two, debate the merits or otherwise of using AI in their work as much as the UR and UX folk? If they do, can someone point me to some points of view from outside my bubble. (if only I could be bothered to make an AI image of me in a bubble to illustrate this post.)

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Saw this recently and made me think about all the times I’ve had to answer the age old question: “why do we need a designer?” My answer has always been the same since I started in the business years ago: We make data actionable, meaningful, and return value. #storytelling #design #productdesign #ux

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More talk stuff from this year, and a bit of a two-parter: 1. The lovely people at #PDW24 have posted videos of the talks from across the week. You can watch mine here: https://lnkd.in/eDAiZ53v 2. Given how nice everyone was about it, I'm going to be pulling a version of 'Building a team is straightforward. Until it isn’t.' together for SXSW London, next year. If you're feeling generous / in the mood, please do take a moment to vote for it: https://lnkd.in/emzenscP #productdesign #ux #productmanagement #sxsw #startup #scaleup

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‘We just need a map’ is one of my biggest pet peeves in this industry. User journey maps can be such powerful artefacts when done correctly. As designers we should be taking it back to basics to add value to our workplaces

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Design Systems doing less. What’s that all about? Has anyone read anything compelling about the trend for design systems that I’m seeing which is to “do less”, “make less”, and even go as far as “we’re not making anything new”? I don’t currently understand it. If there’s a need for a thing, why not make it/centralise it. I’d like to understand it.

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Accessibility can only work effectively when seen as part of your digital transformation or modern 'target operating model' One of the aspects of accessibility less spoken about is how factors outside of the immediate: design, UX and digital team influence the success of efforts. Often, the overall success of the digital transformation (many organisations are still working on) can help or hinder accessibility. For example, how does the IT/Operations agility and underlying policies support your team getting the testing tools, environments and software they need? Do you have well defined and pragmatic remote working systems in place - how might this and other HR policies prevent people with disabilities, or other reasons for preferring home working, from joining your team? How much collaboration is there between Marketing, Brand and PR - especially in terms of offline activity and digital teams? You are only as good as the system you work within. To be continued...

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Our Senior Product Designer Rosie Dent-Spargo held a superb session in February with the Product Design team to create values and principles. Using guidance from Dan Makoski's book Uplifting Design, the session was dynamic and layered. The focus wasn't solely on creation, but also how we might embed principles and values into daily work. This write up is the Rolls-Royce of "How to"s, and is a very valuable read for those looking to create and instil values and principles within any team. https://lnkd.in/e7DXm_Ca #productdesign #principles #values

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Sometimes standard agile methods just don't cut it when it comes to complex, UX-heavy product development. Daniel Moore and I experienced this recently and found we wanted Agile to 'be more UX'. 💡 Our solution was Dual Track Agile One of the key benefits for me was that it facilitated user-centric designs, informed by technical experts resulting in products securely grounded in reality. Read more about Dual Track Agile in our blog linked below. What is it? How did we implement it? And what other benefits did it deliver?

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I've been mulling on the question: Are design systems too slow? So much so, I've written a blog post about it. SPOILER ALERT: We have a problem with our design system. It's too slow! A link to the blog post is in the comments. Let me know what you think.

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Creativity, adaptability and flexibility are key to successful research projects. I've written a few thoughts on these 3 practises in the context of using WhatsApp as a qualitative data collection method here: https://lnkd.in/eWGQA8Ad

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Love the title of this previous BA Life presentation! I think it perfectly sums up the relationships BAs need to have with various stakeholders, including our fabulous UX peeps - and I’ve had the privilege of knowing or working with some wonderful ones!! 🫶 Sally Rogan Andy Thomson Dak Tengur Anusree Manamkottu Catherine Bell And the UX Scotland conference starts in Edinburgh tomorrow!!! 👏 #ba #balife #businessanalysis #businessanalyst

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Just a regular Monday afternoon talking about why a UX Audit might make sense for your digital product. An insightful chat with a product leader recently, where we busted some major myths about UX audits, moved past the misconception that audits are just about nit-picking flaws and really dove into how they can drive meaningful product success. Sounds interesting? let's chat about how we can take your product to the next level! My UX Score Meenakshi Kharade Siddharth Kabra Shashikant Narwade Geetesh Nandanwar Rahul Patil Aditya Kulkarni

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Offering an #accessible and #inclusive experience boosts customer loyalty and enhances brand reputation. Our upcoming Whitepaper on #digitalaccessibility is packed with actionable insights to help businesses transform online experiences for all their users.

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