NOTE: This workshop has a FEE of $650. To attend, you must register for the workshop. You can do this when you register for the conference or at a later date.
Workshop Description: Our lives are increasingly shaped by the technology we use, but people are not a first priority in product design. Other concerns take precedence, and we end up with designs that will yield the highest conversion rate, or interactions that will provide the best usage data. We even have design dark patterns that exploit people for other gains, like the unclosable advertisement, the pre-checked “sign me up” option, the camouflaged unsubscribe link.
Somewhere along the way we stopped prioritizing people in product design. We need to reset, and make caring for people our first principle.
The evolution of technology and design best practices has seen several attempts to reset first principles. Content First is a response to products that are rich in features but lacking in substance. Mobile First is a way to ensure essential content and features work well on mobile devices. In Design for Real Life, Eric Meyer and Sara Wachter-Boettcher encourage us to focus on edge cases rather than avoid them, and by doing so, build better products.
With People First, we look at what might be considered “edge cases” in standard product design. Instead of moving more singular needs and contexts to the margins of our thinking, planning, and decision-making, we focus on them to learn what is most important for everyone. In this way, we move people front-and-center in our design process, gathering insights and understanding that will help us produce products that are powerful and humane.
In this workshop we will present a People First design methodology. Drawing on insights from our work as accessibility consultants, we will teach how to use inclusive user research and accessible user experience to focus product design on people.
What will attendees gain? • An appreciation of the benefits of focusing on people in product design • An understanding of the potential harm that can be inflicted by design that does not prioritize people • The ability to differentiate reasoning based on “People First” thinking • Practical experience with a range of people-focused research methods • Practice turning research insights into design decisions that benefit everyone
Wednesday March 22, 2017 9:00am - 5:00pm PDT
Room 3
