Images are decorative, functional, or informative. Skip alt text for decorative. Describe the action for functional. Convey the message for informative.
Dark mode is popular, but not always a critical feature. Users behave similarly without it. They think about it at the system level, not the application level.
Noteworthy highlights from Intranet Design Annual winners in 2023 include supporting the return to work and hybrid working, fostering employee growth and development, utilizing AI effectively, and minimizing the need for employees to leave the intranet to access additional tools.
Winners of the 2023 Intranet Design Annual span 5 countries and 6 industries. Average team sizes were larger this year compared to those of years past, while collaboration with external agencies played a significant role in executing successful intranet redesigns.
Users who are blind or have low vision prefer dictation over typing with a keyboard whenever possible. Screen readers on touchscreen devices are restricted to a well-defined set of gestures which makes interaction more challenging than on computers.
Use word of mouth to recruit research participants who rely on screen readers. Conduct the study in person to help participants feel comfortable, and plan to record the screen-reader output.
Using a screen reader on mobile is challenging because users must access information sequentially and they cannot easily scan page content. Screen-reader users do not consider accessibility menus helpful.
To design accessible visuals, account for color contrast, don’t rely on color alone, make interactive elements easy to identify, provide useful alternative text for images, and test your visuals with real users.
Still challenged by the global pandemic but unwavering, intranet-design teams committed to accessibility and inclusion. Empathy and logic prevailed, resulting in winning intranets that are accepting and supportive of all employees equally.
The 2022 Intranet Design Annual winning teams were small relative to the size of their organizations, yet they produced excellent designs quickly. Teams continued to partner with outside consultants for support in development, project management, design, research, and other areas. A wide variety of industries from only four countries were represented this year.
Inclusive design describes methodologies to create products that understand and enable people of all backgrounds and abilities. It may address accessibility, age, economic situation, geographic location, language, race, and more.
The design of vote-by-mail materials (made imperative by the COVID-19 pandemic) have UX issues that make the voting process unnecessarily difficult and error prone.
In people with normal vision (or corrected-to-normal vision), visual performance tends to be better with light mode, whereas some people with cataract and related disorders may perform better with dark mode. On the flip side, long-term reading in light mode may be associated with myopia.
A treemap is a complex, area-based data visualization for hierarchical data that can be hard to interpret precisely. In many cases, simpler visualizations such as bar charts are preferable.