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WHITNEY QUESENBERY In this episode we are pleased to introduce you to Whitney Quesenbery who has...
WHITNEY QUESENBERY In this episode we are pleased to introduce you to Whitney Quesenbery who has contributed impressive value to the field of experience and research. She’s written three books, the last entitled “A Web for Everyone: Deg Accessible Experiences, with Sarah Horton. this book builds accessibility into every part of a web site or app design so that everyone can use it. She is also dedicated to usability in civic life and has worked with a number of notable organizations like Pearson, National Library of Medicine, and the National Cancer Institute to name a few. HERE’S THE FULL TRANSCRIPT Lara: Let’s share with the audience how you got started. How you got interested in all of this. Whitney: I went to college and I thought I was going to be a University professor, teaching English literature or something. So I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I discovered theater. And one day someone asked me if I could write because I had some documentation to write on a product for a bank in New York. And I thought, “Yeah, I can do this. A little money, not bad.” And the next thing I knew I was turning down theater jobs because I was so entranced by this new thing called hypertext. This was before the web. I was amazed at how you could put information together and connect it up instead of each thing being some tough job to find, we could make it connect. And we went on and did that and became the world expert on hypertext, which wasn’t saying much because I didn’t have that many years of experience. I did tech , I did documentation, and I became the project manager. And when the web hit, all the original hypertext programs kind of died and in the face of it, and we had to really think about where we were going next. So, that was how I got from theater to experience, was just kind of following an opportunity that came along. Lara: And it’s a great thing to fall back to, to look at the similarities between theater and UX. Whitney: I do think there are a lot of similarities. For one thing, they’re both a live interaction with someone. In both cases there’s a kind of conversation that’s happening between the people imagining the experience and creating the experience, and the people enjoying the experience. And in both cases the real experience happens when someone uses it. Not only is the audience having an experience, but the actors are also in the room with them. And there’s a loop that happens, a story-telling loop where the actors influence the play, the audience influences the play, and it changes night to night. And, so maybe that’s why I was pretty comfortable from the beginning with the idea that the things we created in UX, the digital experiences, are also mutable and changeable, and respond to people and context. Lara: Definitely. And I when I was in theater, and not having a speaking part and the director telling everyone that every single role is really important and it’s part of the whole system, part of the whole story. And I think that relates so well also. Whitney: Absolutely, we know that all the disciplines that go into experience are present in one person or a whole team of people; they all have to be there. If you leave one out, there’s a gap. Some of the new apps have been really successful about turning things into a conversation like the way Simple has the “safe to spend” amount. So it doesn’t say, “You’re overspending!” It says, “Your safe to spend amount is $58.25.” You’ve said. “I want to really save for that trip.” And it said, “I’ll help you do that. I’ll be part of your journey towards that trip you want to take, or that thing you want to buy.” Lara: Sometimes it’s hard to come up with a story for a business case. If you’re looking at something serious like business ing software we were talking about. That’s kind of difficult for companies to imagine that there’s a story there. What would you say to them? Whitney: The task of doing ing is not that interesting in itself. The task of doing ing is part of a larger goal. And of course there’s a story. The story might be where business and we send our staff around the world to work on our product. And when they come back we need to cover their expenses. So the business’ story might be I need this information in a proper way so I that could repay you. And the staff person’s story might be I’d really like to get paid back for all these expenses. And the ing department software might be we have an obligation to make sure that it’s done legally. But it’s really a conversation if you think about it. It’s the staff person comes in and they say, “ Hey, I’ve just been on a trip. Let me tell you about what I spent.” Let’s talk about the conference UX Hong Kong. You talked about how you used stories and personas at your workshop for as well as incorporating accessibility into the early stages of design. Whitney: Well, Dan Szuc from Hong Kong was helping organize the first conference, or speakers for the first conference. And it was just a great group of people. I just loved it. And it was in Beijing, the next year it was Shanghai and I went back. And I’ve gone back every few years since then, but not every year. The conference is huge because it’s hard for people who live in China to get visas to travel outside of China. And so this is the big conference, it’s the big practitioner conference and there’s something like eight workshops everyday or ten workshops everyday and then plenaries in the morning. It’s a big gathering. Lara: Do you see any of the Euro IA community there as well? Whitney: Absolutely, people come from all over; they have people from the UK and speakers from Europe and speakers from the US. I think they are looking for who are the people doing exciting things and, bringing them into China. We really are kind of an international community and it’s nice to make it fully international to be able to include everyone. Lara: Definitely. So are you presenting at this one? Whitney: I’m doing two workshops. One is on story. I’m creating stories for your personas. That is, what can you do to use your personas once you’ve made them? I think a lot of people make personas and then they don’t know what to do with them next. We have three exercises that we’re doing, different things you can do with your personas to help inform design more and to help evaluate design. And the second one is, based on the new book called A Web for Everyone. And we are going to look at eight personas for people with disabilities who use the web. And think about not only what we need to do with design for them but also who are they similar to? What are the things that someone, say someone who is fatigued easily — what do they need and who else might need that? So where can we find the places where good UX for everyone equals good accessibility. Lara: While we are on the topic, I really liked what you said when we talked earlier when you were talking about beginning the design with a broader beginning. Like, thinking about it in of all people, not just people with special needs. Whitney: Who we do our research with is part of how we scope our projects. And if the people in your head you are deg for are narrow, they are people just like you and maybe just like you but they live somewhere else. Then you are going to get a product (an app) that works for people just like you. But if you start to think about a broader range of people, people with different capabilities, people with different perspectives. Maybe people that don’t love technology as much as we do, or maybe they love it more. Maybe people who use different technologies. Then all of that thinking goes into your work. So I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we get a broader range of people into our research. And that may mean giving up statistical significance in favor of breadth of input. It might mean making sure we can do research with people maybe who maybe interact differently with the web, who are blind, who speak a different language, who use different things than a mouse and a keyboard. And how can we make them part of our work so that we are just not thinking about them at the end. Because we know anyone from usability to experience to research to content strategy to IA, whatever discipline you are in, we know that getting the thinking in the beginning is what makes it come out right at the end. And the more people you know in relation to the thing you are working on, the design you are working on, the more all of those influences filter into your design. Lara: Right, to see what is visible and to make that visible, but also to hide the mechanics of things yet in a positive way. Even with forms we need to question every single field. Is this crucial. Is this necessary? Why is this necessary">