A short week, but things are getting done. People are not waiting, they are seeking. They are asking questions and getting answers. They are not giving even the appearance of waiting. There’s bias to action, and then there’s bias to learning. These people are doing the latter, and it warms my heart.

[name redacted] writes:

UK Gov websites dropping support for alt text fields and giving odd advice about what screen reader users want is making the rounds on Linkedin https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/2023/08/10/making-it-easier-to-add-images-on-gov-uk/

Naturally this has been met with many hot takes, including

bizarre, especially given that i have often heard the uk gov is a good example of taking accessibility seriously

[name redacted 2]

and

I wonder if they consulted any screen reader users before they went with this somewhat condescending metaphor: “Another way to make sure you are describing the image properly is to imagine that you’re reading out the content of the page on a telephone. When you get to the image, what would you say to help the listener understand the point the page is making?”

[name redacted 3]

…as well as complaints that Gov.uk is “canceling the alt tag” and other alarmist conclusions.

Gov.uk’s advice is actually pretty good, if a bit high-level.

We should provide alternate content for anything that is not text or cannot be read by a screen reader and that is important to the meaning of the page – for example, if the image were missing or broken the page’s meaning or intelligibility would be diminished – and should not provide alternate content for anything that can be safely left out without diminishing that meaning.

There are a few ways to provide alternate content; the alt attribute is one of them. It appears that gov.uk is expressing in part that the alt attribute is a less accessible way of presenting that alternate content than simply putting that alternate content right into the page, and that’s true: a person who needs the content in the alt attribute but doesn’t use a screen reader (such as a person using a magnifier) will have to do some extra work to dig that content out of the alt attribute that a screen reader user would not need to do. That person would be helped if the alternate content were in the page, and no one else would be inconvenienced by this change.

• Driving lessons with the girl seem to be going well, especially since we’ve borrowed an automatic so we can learn to drive before we learn to drive stick. It has opened things up considerably.
• I had my review and it went well. I’ll share some of the results in a subsequent post.
• Football season has begun and there is optimism for both Seattle teams. Hooray.

(Quotations are my words, all else are the words of my manager.)

Revision to goals for the quarter

Step into responsiveness via the design system – propose to R&D why and a way forward to get us to accommodate actual user viewport sizes better, and get a resulting project onto the roadmap

I don’t have the strongest opinion on this one and bucket it similarly to chipping away at general UX improvements. I don’t want to dig the hole deeper – anything net new we develop would ideally have a higher bar of usability prior to general release – but would need to see specific examples with LOE of more general improvement candidates to weigh in.

Improve the quality of UX delivery – establish Figma delivery conventions specifically intended to reduce the cognitive load on developers, with developer input and feedback, and pilot these new conventions

Strongly agree with this one and I appreciate how Jon scoped the specific action item this quarter.

Advocate for an appropriate level of UX/UI polish to survive engineering delivery by spreading the UX review cycle currently piloted via Smart Alerts and Call Review projects to other teams/crews

Also in strong agreement here but with the most Q3 emphasis being on Call Review & Coaching-related projects if we had to prioritize where Jon spends his time.

Advocate for and begin a project to do POC IAs for various user types to explore the sensibility and difficulty of separating [product A] and [product B]

We talked about modifying this one a bit as some of the groundwork on [product B] is in place. I let Jon know that I have a Q3 goal with [PM] to revamp the [product A] product vision/strategy which will surely need UX input as stakeholders and that ideally better defines where UX output can be helpful for [product A] future IA and candidates for usability improvement.​

Values

• Light The Customer’s Way: [evident in] the improvements we’ve made to UX quality in recent releases and stronger focus on customer adoption and usability.
• Continuous Improvement: Jon’s involvement in many of the organizational & process improvements we’ve rolled out in recent months, ensuring UX had a seat at the table ahead of making these changes and providing his perspective that influenced the solutions we implemented.​

Past Quarter’s Results

Jon has done a fantastic job improving both the quality of UX output at Invoca and building buy-in for user/customer-centric activities. He receives positive feedback from cross-department stakeholders and I am grateful to have him leading UX efforts. Key examples of Jon’s leveling up of UX in recent months:

• His participation at Dallas and May offsites, particularly the lead up to our leadership offsite and his help with material preparation and follow through.
• His very well-received Connect talk that summarized/connected the dots on many of the changes we had been looking to drive following our offsite discussions - trios, experimentation, shipping value/quality vs. speed, etc.
• Leveling up members on the UX team and helping define new shaping frameworks to set them up for success. Also, pushing the team to have more direct customer/user feedback sessions.I hope Jon recognizes how far we’ve come in a short time (no longer prioritizing by service area vs. customer needs) and I’m excited to continue the journey with him.

​2 – Right On Track

• Quarterly coaching is done! Yay. There were no surprises, as expected. People offered and acknowledged their areas of grown, which is a good sign.
• I wrote a screed in the R&D leadership Slack channel and it was well-received. Now I have to help put my complaint into operation; I feel renewed energy for that.
• I figured out how to avoid the “vapor lock” many reveal people experience when discussing a vast problem space. It’s probably nothing new technique-wise, but already the discussions I’m having are more operationally useful than they were before because we’re getting around the temptation to zoom out and hand-wave.