The people, place and space newsletter #14
Accessibility lessons, design hellscapes and getting people to the station
Hi folks! Welcome to the people place and space newsletter, a monthly look at the best human centred design articles and news, tailored for people that love designing for people.
Laura
Twitters new font and Last of Us 2: An accessibility lesson to be learned
By Anna 4erepawko Mészáros
Image courtesy of Anna on Medium
The recent issues Twitter has had with releasing it’s new “Chirp” font are quite surprising for a large social media platform. It’s great they are continuing to strive for meeting as many access needs as possible, but it feels like their approach is a bit one-dimensional eg: only tested on certain machines (Mac), designing for only a few types of access needs, and so on. As an accessibility strategy, it’s narrow. What Anna does in her article is contrasts Twitter’s approach with game developers Naughty Dog for their new game “Last of Us 2”, who took a much more granular route to accessibility and customisation:
Initially, the team at Naughty Dog planned to have modes that covered specific areas. There would be one for hearing impaired users, for instance, and another for issues around motor control. The idea being that you switch on that mode and all of the related features will be enabled. “Instantly we got feedback that ‘this is not what we want,’” Gallant explains. “‘We want to be able to dig into the menus, fine-tune things, adjust things, really get into the nitty-gritty of what these options mean.’” - The Verge
Obviously accessibility is not “one size fits all” and it makes sense to provide people with as much control over the UI and the way they interact as possible. Let’s hope Twitter adapts to use the same approach.
Designers live in a hellscape created by other designers
By Michael McWatters
Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain
It’s true - when you become a designer it becomes this curse - you see bad design everywhere. Doors and appliances that don’t work as expected, convoluted user journeys through services and poorly written content, to mention just a few of the many design frustrations that become obvious to you.
What’s great about this article is that Michael uncovers the positive angle on bad design - that we as designers have an opportunity to deconstruct and fix things for the better:
Many designers think of design as an act of creation, an additive process, a form of construction. These characteristics are of course essential parts of the design process. But good design actually begins with an act of demolition and deconstruction, of tearing things apart before ultimately reconstituting them in a better way. - Michael McWatters
Harry Beck, research repositories, and getting people to the station
By Brigette Metzler
Image courtesy of Brigette Metzler on Medium
This isn’t a new article but it was shared this week and I can’t believe I missed it. The epiphany that Brigette had is a brilliant one:
I realised that our researchers are kind of like geographers. They want the complexity, contours and features of the land they’ve mapped to be visible. But the people reading our research don’t want to see all that until they’ve arrived at the station as it were. They just want to work out how to get from one station to the next. To see how many stations there are and to know how to get there on their own, so they can take their own journey with the research.
Maybe our responsibility is to show them the map AND get them to get off at the right stop to explore the complexity? - Brigette Metzler
It mirrors a workshop I did a long time ago about reframing what you do as an explorer of the world, and how it’s your responsibility to bring a map back that other (non-research) people can understand.
Other stuff worth reading
How to map nothing - geographies of suspension, a fantastic talk about nothing by Shannon Mattern
This Monster list of UX books in Airtable by Chris Oliver
Following a recommendation from a colleague, this stackoverflow blog on the software that flies the SpaceX rockets and starships was a match made in heaven to pair with Elon Musk’s tour around StarBase via Everyday Astronaut (I’m not a huge fan of his, but his distilled wisdom on his approach to engineering is pretty interesting)
Finding time to design - by Jośe Torre (Sound advice and fantastic accompanying illustrations!)
I loved this article on How cities can be redesigned for neurodiversity, and how it’s important to design a range of experiences so people can choose the best one for them
What I’ve been up to
It’s the summer holidays in the UK so schools are out, it’s been a time to reconnect with family after such a long time of lockdowns and isolation.
I’ve also been exploring the new Storyteller Tactics beta deck from Pip Decks, I can’t believe the amount of work and care has gone into what’s included. It feels like an entire book in a handy little deck 😍 I think the kickstarter is going live soon if you were interested in getting the finished product for yourself.
That’s all for this month everyone, take care and enjoy your weekend!
Laura