How will the Virtual Event work? Meetings will take place using the video conferencing tool Zoom, collaboration tools (such as group document editing and whiteboarding tools), and the social discussion tool Slack. You’ll also be able to use Slack before, during, and after the event to participate in social events and network with other… Continue reading UX Conference February Announced (Feb 4 – Feb 12)
Category: Accessibility
Insights Aren’t Outcomes: Research Recommendation Breakage
Summary: Research recommendations often fail to reach users. Without tracking adoption, teams rely on hope instead of evidence to confirm their work creates change. Many research teams do good work. They identify the right problems, recruit the right participants, and run studies that reveal what is really going on. The end product is often packaged… Continue reading Insights Aren’t Outcomes: Research Recommendation Breakage
UX Conference January Announced (Jan 20 – Jan 29)
How will the Virtual Event work? Meetings will take place using the video conferencing tool Zoom, collaboration tools (such as group document editing and whiteboarding tools), and the social discussion tool Slack. You’ll also be able to use Slack before, during, and after the event to participate in social events and network with other… Continue reading UX Conference January Announced (Jan 20 – Jan 29)
Google AI Mode: Powerful Search, Poor Usability
Summary: Google’s new AI Mode provides a new way to search the web but is hampered by discoverability and navigation issues — especially for AI novices. What Is Google AI Mode? Google AI Mode is a new feature of the search engine that combines the breadth of a web search with the reasoning power of… Continue reading Google AI Mode: Powerful Search, Poor Usability
Stop Misrecruits: Add Foils to Your Screener
Summary: Foils are fake (but plausible) options in screeners that catch inattentive or dishonest participants, protecting data quality and saving time. Even the most carefully designed screener can let the wrong participants slip into their study. You may discover halfway through a usability test that someone clearly doesn’t match your target audience – leaving you… Continue reading Stop Misrecruits: Add Foils to Your Screener
The global community is coming together to accelerate digital accessibility at axe-con 2026!
What happens when you combine the passion, experience, and expertise of accessibility practitioners across the globe with world-changing regulatory momentum and transformative breakthroughs in technology? The answer is: Progress! What we are experiencing in this new era is unlike anything we’ve ever witnessed. Today, we have the power, the opportunity, and the technology to accelerate… Continue reading The global community is coming together to accelerate digital accessibility at axe-con 2026!
Prioritize Smarts over Sentience to Increase Trust with AI
Summary: People trust AI more when it seems smarter rather than sentient. AI emotions can reduce trust in factual, task-oriented work and reduce AI reliability. A common concern from attendees of our Designing AI Experiences course is how to help users develop trust with artificial intelligence (AI). One technique that designers are frequently tempted to… Continue reading Prioritize Smarts over Sentience to Increase Trust with AI
A Millennial’s DVD Collection: I’m Returning to Physical Discs
Summary: Frustrating streaming apps and smart TV design pushed at least one user (me) back to physical discs for reliability, ownership, and simpler choices. I remember when the first digital-streaming service (Netflix’s) became available. It was such a massive improvement on the user experience of watching a movie — no need to go to a… Continue reading A Millennial’s DVD Collection: I’m Returning to Physical Discs
You need to get started on ADA Title II compliance now: How to strategize funding, slash risk, and ensure ROI
Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities by state and local governments, and the ADA Title II compliance clock is ticking. Do you have enough budget set aside? For large entities with populations of 50,000 or more, the deadline is less than nine months away. Fortunately, even… Continue reading You need to get started on ADA Title II compliance now: How to strategize funding, slash risk, and ensure ROI
How to eliminate costly rework and fix accessibility issues early with expert guidance from axe Assistant
Engineering teams today are under pressure to deliver high-quality, accessible code quickly, but these teams often lack an immediate channel to accessibility experts who can validate their work in real time. Without that guidance, issues can slip through that can lead to production delays, costly rework, and broken user experiences. That’s why having a reliable,… Continue reading How to eliminate costly rework and fix accessibility issues early with expert guidance from axe Assistant
Introduction to Digital Accessibility
Introduction The dictionary term “Accessibility” means – The ability to acquire, use, understand, or enter into something with ease. Accessibility is a social responsibility. It’s an inclusive approach to creating products, services, and environments that can be used by people of all abilities including people with disabilities. Some examples of accessible solutions include: Wheelchairs Entry… Continue reading Introduction to Digital Accessibility
People with diverse abilities
Introduction Accessibility is not just for people with disabilities, it is for everyone. Many of us may find ourselves in temporary or situational limitations on how we use and access content on the web. By creating solutions for users with a permanent disability, we are also helping users with temporary, situational disabilities or users with… Continue reading People with diverse abilities
Mixed-Methods Research: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Data
Summary: Mixed-methods research combines qualitative and quantitative methods to explore a single research question. Teams might assume that simply sprinkling in a quantitative survey alongside interviews qualifies as mixed-methods research. In reality, effective mixed-methods research involves more than just ensuring that both qualitative and quantitative methods appear somewhere in the same project. What Is Mixed-Methods… Continue reading Mixed-Methods Research: Combining Qualitative and Quantitative Data
Three quick ways to shift left and fix accessibility issues sooner
Digital accessibility is essential to the software design lifecycle (SDLC). You can’t build products that meet compliance requirements without it, and if your product fails to meet accessibility standards, you face stalled sales, loss of market share, legal and financial risk, and more. Unfortunately, however, digital accessibility is often an afterthought—if it’s thought of at… Continue reading Three quick ways to shift left and fix accessibility issues sooner
The Product Triad: Design’s Role
Summary: Effective product teams work across silos to create value. Designers are expected to make products not only desirable, but also viable and feasible. The product triad (also called the product trio or three-legged-stool model) is likely the most common pattern for organizing product teams in Agile organizations. Its fundamental goal is to structure collaboration… Continue reading The Product Triad: Design’s Role
A tailored digital accessibility plan for your organization—in minutes.
Developing a strategic plan for digital accessibility is one of the most impactful efforts your organization can undertake to create more effective and inclusive customer experiences. Far beyond a legal requirement alone, digital accessibility is a competitive advantage—expanding your reach, improving usability for everyone, and reinforcing your commitment to your customers. With legislation like the… Continue reading A tailored digital accessibility plan for your organization—in minutes.
“Powered By AI” Is Not a Value Proposition
Summary: Achieving product-market fit and practicing user-centered design become difficult when AI is presented as a product’s main value. A Clear Value Proposition Helps Both Users and Product Teams To help make decisions throughout the product lifecycle, designers create principles at the beginning of a project. The value proposition is the foremost of those principles… Continue reading “Powered By AI” Is Not a Value Proposition
The EAA and the new era of digital accessibility
I’ve been working to advance digital accessibility for over twenty years. In that time, I’ve seen both successes and setbacks. But like everyone committed to this mission, I have never wavered in my faith that digital accessibility is the future. Well, that future is here. The European Accessibility Act (EAA) is law as of this… Continue reading The EAA and the new era of digital accessibility
UX Conference September Announced (Sep 6 – Sep 19)
How will the Virtual Event work? Meetings will take place using the video conferencing tool Zoom, collaboration tools (such as group document editing and whiteboarding tools), and the social discussion tool Slack. You’ll also be able to use Slack before, during, and after the event to participate in social events and network with other… Continue reading UX Conference September Announced (Sep 6 – Sep 19)
AI Summaries of Reviews
Summary: AI-generated review summaries extract qualitative key themes from customer feedback, helping shoppers quickly assess what purchasers think about the product. When designed well, AI summaries of ecommerce reviews helped our study participants quickly gauge product quality and fit for their needs. But when AI summaries of customer reviews were vague, poorly formatted, or blocked… Continue reading AI Summaries of Reviews
What’s new in axe Developer Hub: Updates for more flexibility, security, and control
When it comes to digital accessibility, finding issues earlier is always better. You save time and money, and most importantly, you ensure accessible experiences for your users every time. Axe Developer Hub was built so you can effortlessly add automated accessibility testing to your end-to-end (E2E) tests with just a simple configuration, allowing you to… Continue reading What’s new in axe Developer Hub: Updates for more flexibility, security, and control
AI as a Creative Teammate
Summary: AI acts as a creative teammate in group settings as it does for solo work. Thoughtful facilitation ensures teams leverage AI effectively in workshops and critiques. I don’t need to tell you that generative AI can be useful for ideation, writing, or communication — you probably already know and believe that. In speaking with… Continue reading AI as a Creative Teammate
Designing for Serial Task Switching
Summary: Serial task switching, or rapidly shifting attention between tasks, is a natural user behavior that lowers productivity and increases stress and the chance of errors. Be honest. How many tabs do you have open right now? If you’re like me, it’s probably more than you’d like to admit. Serial task switching is a natural… Continue reading Designing for Serial Task Switching
Building accessible apps with Next.js and axe DevTools
As a developer, you want to build fast, modern, progressive web applications (PWAs) that reach as many users as possible. That’s the goal—and it’s a good one. But if accessibility isn’t part of that process, you could be unintentionally leaving people behind. Accessibility (a11y) is essential to creating inclusive experiences and is a hallmark of… Continue reading Building accessible apps with Next.js and axe DevTools