The limitations of generic solutions

Off-the-shelf products are designed to serve a broad audience with standardized features and functionalities. They often lack the flexibility to adapt to specific business needs or to integrate seamlessly with existing systems. As a result, you may encounter limitations in functionality, user experience, and brand alignment.

The power of custom solutions

In contrast, custom solutions are designed to address the unique requirements of a business. From the initial concept to final delivery, every aspect of a custom-designed product is tailored to align with business goals, user needs, and brand identity. This personalized approach ensures that the solution meets your needs. 

Why custom solutions are worth the investment

Personalized user experience

Custom solutions are designed with the end-user in mind, resulting in a user experience that is specifically personalized to their needs. Custom solutions create meaningful interactions that enhance user satisfaction, meet business needs, and drive better outcomes.

Enhanced flexibility and scalability

Whether you’re scaling up or adjusting features to meet changing needs, custom solutions can adapt and grow with your business, providing long-term value. We often include a design system with reusable branded components and styles to scale more efficiently and ensure consistency.

Seamless integration

Custom solutions can be designed to integrate smoothly with existing systems and workflows, eliminating compatibility issues with off-the-shelf products. This integration ensures your new solution enhances rather than disrupts your current workflows.

Unique brand identity

Custom solutions translate unique brand attributes into tangible user experiences. This ensures your brand stands out and delivers a consistent message across all touchpoints. Even if brand guidelines are sparse or don’t exist, designers use their expertise to create a strong brand presence.

Designing for inclusivity

Implementing accessibility criteria not only improves accessibility for users with disabilities but also enhances the overall user experience. This isn’t always ensured in off-the-shelf solutions, which could result in usability limitations for people with disabilities as well as legal issues for lack of accessibility compliance.

Greater control and ownership

Investing in a custom solution gives you greater control over the design and functionality of your product. This means you can prioritize features that are crucial to your users and make adjustments as needed without being constrained by the limitations of pre-built solutions. User testing and iterative improvements enhance the user experience of your product over time.

Improved efficiency and productivity

Since custom solutions are customized for specific workflows, they include relevant features and functionality without the unnecessary additions found in generic platforms. Solutions are tested with users and optimized to complement their workflows.

The impact of custom solutions

We’ve experienced success stories where businesses invested in custom solutions. Clients that needed unique functionalities or complex integrations found that custom solutions provided the exact features and interactions they required, resulting in streamlined workflows, enhanced user experiences, and deeper insights.

Unique workflows

Clients often have unique needs that cannot be addressed by off-the-shelf platforms. They often resort to workarounds that are inefficient and frustrating. A customized product based on user needs can have a significant impact on workflows and efficiency.

For example, we recently designed a product for a client who conducts plant evaluations at nuclear stations. They had an inefficient observation and interaction application, which negatively affected cross-operational work and internal/external collaboration. We were able to include features and functionality relevant to their workflows, improving collaboration and efficiency. They were able to eliminate all of the manual workarounds of their previous process and manage everything within a single source of truth.

Integrated platforms

Fragmented workflows are a common problem for our clients. Without a centralized platform, they often rely on multiple disparate tools, leading to inefficient, disconnected processes and scattered data. A centralized platform, customized to a client’s needs, can transform chaotic processes into cohesive and efficient workflows.

For example, we recently designed an integrated platform for healthcare coaches that consolidated their entire workflow into one seamless system. This new platform replaced the need for separate tools for managing appointments, conducting Telehealth sessions, and tracking patient notes. We added AI enhancements to help coaches quickly get summaries and improve writing. By centralizing these functions, we eliminated inefficiencies and provided a unified view of client data and insights. 

Conclusion

Choosing a custom solution over a generic, off-the-shelf product represents a strategic investment in your business’s future. A custom design not only improves user experience and strengthens your brand but also offers the flexibility to grow and change as your needs evolve. This investment pays off by providing lasting value that generic solutions can’t match

The post From Generic to Exceptional: Why Custom Solutions Are Worth the Investment appeared first on Digital Scientists.

The importance of defining and communicating a design process

We’ve witnessed success when we proactively define and communicate our process, leading to smoother collaboration, reduced misunderstandings, and more successful outcomes. On the contrary, we’ve seen projects falter when the design process is ambiguous or poorly communicated. This can result in misaligned expectations, delays, and a loss of trust. We’ve had clients come to us with the frustration of having invested time and money with other agencies but not gotten the results they expected. We’ve been able to gain their trust by clearly defining our process and delivering as promised. A well-defined and communicated design process is crucial for setting clear expectations, aligning goals, and creating efficient workflows.

Clear expectations for project stages and scope

Transparency

Each stage of the design process is clearly outlined so that everyone understands what to expect and when.

Scope definition

Everyone understands what is included, ensuring the project remains manageable and focused.

Alignment of goals and prioritizations

Goal setting

Project goals and objectives are clearly defined, so that everyone has a shared understanding of what success looks like

Prioritization

Alignment on features and elements that are most critical to project success. Typically, we lead an alignment workshop and use engaging exercises like the MoSCoW prioritization (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have).

Structure for efficient workflows and milestones

Structured approach

A defined process provides structure to streamline workflows and improve efficiency.

Milestone tracking

Clearly communicated milestones and deliverables keep the project on track and ensure that everyone is aware of progress and upcoming tasks.

Our design process

We believe in tailoring our process to fit the specific needs and objectives of each project. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. Instead, we carefully analyze the requirements and goals of every project to create an agile, customized strategy that ensures the best possible outcomes.

We essentially focus on four main stages: UX research, UX design, product strategy, and development. While we like to lead with UX research and design, product strategy and development are involved from the beginning, so we work in parallel.

UX research

Helps us grasp user behavior, needs, and challenges, uncovering insights that inform actionable recommendations to guide the design and strategy. The following are phases for UX research:

Research plan & objectives 

A research plan is a strategic document outlining objectives, methodologies, a timeline, and resources to ensure systematic, focused, and efficient insight gathering.

• Directs focus, reducing wasted efforts
• Guides informed decisions with evidence
• Aligns teams and clarifies goals

Research methods 

Selecting the most appropriate and effective methodologies to answer specific research questions or to achieve the objectives of a study within the constraints of time, budget, and available resources.

• Ensures precise, relevant insights into user needs
• Yields insights directly useful for design and strategy
• Early problem identification minimizes costly fixes

Interviews

A qualitative research method involving structured conversations with users to understand their experiences, needs, and challenges with a product or service to provide insights for design improvements.

• Uncovers deep insights
• Contextual understanding
• Builds user empathy
• Identify specific usability issues 

Findings and insights

Systematically synthesizing data gathered during UX research to uncover patterns in user behavior, preferences, and challenges. Reporting insights involves crafting a narrative that conveys these key observations and actionable recommendations clearly.

• Reveals user needs, challenges, and opportunities
• Guides product development
• Informs design decisions

UX design

Create visuals and interactions based on user needs that are intuitive, functional, and provide an enjoyable user experience. The following are phases for UX design:

Information architecture

Structuring complex information (labeling, navigation, hierarchies, and taxonomy) to make content and features understandable and accessible. 

• Defines navigation and captures scope
• Shows page organization and hierarchy
• Workflows that capture a sequence of actions a user takes to fulfill goals

Wireframes

A blueprint of the user interface that shows content, hierarchy, and functionality for each unique page.

• Layout of content and interactions that will appear in the prototype
• Insight into key components that will become part of the design system
• Provides clarity on scope and functionality
• Team consensus before investing time on a prototype

Prototype

An interactive representation of a product’s user interface and experience before it goes into development.

• A tangible product to evaluate and refine
• Brand alignment and consistency
• Gain valuable user insights
• A valuable reference for developers

Design system

A customized collection of reusable design components and styles.

• Reusable UI elements and styles 
• Consistent user experience
• Improved collaboration and handoff between teams
• Empowers designing and scaling a product efficiently

Product strategy

Strategy that secures user adoption by meeting their needs while reaching business goals, reducing risks, and ensuring quality. The following are phases for product strategy:

Product vision 

A product vision outlines a product’s purpose and future direction.

• What is the future state of the product?
• How are we going to help our users?
• How do we define success for this product?

Jobs to be done

Jobs-to-be-Done Theory provides a framework for defining, categorizing, capturing, and organizing all of a user’s needs.

• Simple “needs” statements
• Helps prioritize features
• Helps define the categories of features (epics)

Epics & user stories

User stories are short requirements or requests written from the perspective of an end user. Epics are larger bodies of work that can be broken down into a number of smaller stories.


• Ability to manage sprints and align around features and tasks
• Manage the backlog of items, current sprint’s priorities, with visibility into the status of those tasks, including bugs
• Ability to manage story points and manage development velocity

Product roadmap

A product roadmap is a shared source of truth that outlines the vision, direction, priorities, and progress of a product over time.

• Shared plan of action
• Short- and long-term goals
• Ability to visualize main deliverables and milestones

Development

Creates a clear development roadmap based upon designs and specifications, focusing on seamless integrations, system behavior, and infrastructure. The following are phases for development:

Requirements

Outlines what the product aims to achieve and how it interacts with users and other systems. It outlines what the product should do from the user’s point of view and its technical needs, focusing on security and legal standards.

• Prioritization and sequence of actions: A clear inventory of requirements enables effective prioritization
• Addressing non-functional requirements early, including security and compliance, diminishes legal and operational risks

System architecture

The structural design of the product is defined. It describes the component architecture, selecting specific technologies, frameworks, and 3rd party services used to build the product (the technology stack), and outlines how data is stored, accessed, and managed across the system.

• Provides a unified blueprint, aligning everyone with the system’s structure and objectives
• Helps in avoiding delays and inefficiencies that could arise from making these decisions later on
• Serves as a common language among stakeholders, making for faster understanding and implementation when things change

Behaviors & integrations

Focuses on the product’s dynamic aspects and its interactions with external systems. It covers third-party integrations and APIs the software will connect with, detailing any complex behaviors such as authentication flows, scheduled tasks (crontabs), and other processes that require detailed explanation to ensure smooth operation and interoperability.

• Ensures a clear understanding of product behaviors and external interactions
• Facilitates seamless system integration and interoperability
• Highlights security considerations for safe data exchange

Infrastructure & deployment

Defines the necessary infrastructure for product support, encompassing server specifications, cloud services, etc. It also explains the deployment strategy, articulates procedures for rolling out updates, and ensures the implementation of continuous delivery and integration practices, with consideration for QA/testability.

• Defines the capacity and scalability of the infrastructure to meet future demands
• Details deployment strategies for streamlined and efficient product updates
• Ensures infrastructure robustness for reliable product performance
• Ensures that the product infrastructure supports thorough testing and quality assurance processes to maintain high standards of reliability and performance

A well-defined design process serves as the backbone for delivering exceptional results. It facilitates clear expectations, aligned goals, and efficient workflows. By focusing on four main stages: UX research, UX design, product strategy, and development, we create an agile, customized strategy based on the requirements and goals of every project.

The post Process-driven design for improved outcomes appeared first on Digital Scientists.

A centralized platform, customized to a client’s needs, can transform chaotic processes into cohesive and efficient workflows.

The benefits of a custom, centralized platform

Integrating workflows into one centralized location has many advantages.

Improved efficiency and productivity

Eliminates the frustrating, time-consuming task of juggling multiple tools to stitch together workflows. We recently designed an integrated platform prototype customized for healthcare coaches where they can manage all of their workflows. This will eliminate their current need for two tools for managing and taking notes during their patient appointments, another tool for setting and managing appointments, another tool for managing telehealth, and a lack of client data and insights.

Enhanced collaboration and communication

More visibility and opportunities for inter-departmental collaboration and insights. We are currently developing an integrated platform for nuclear facility inspections that allows them to leave comments, track updates, receive notifications, and communicate with their team and facility managers. This will eliminate numerous emails, shared printouts, and the lack of transparency and historical data that they currently resort to.

Increased relevance and value

A custom solution eliminates unnecessary features in existing platforms and gives clients functionality tailored specifically to their needs. We’ve seen users overwhelmed by the number of irrelevant options in their current tools, as well as frustrated by the inability to customize certain features that are relevant to their workflows.

Better data management and insights

Centralized data allows more flexibility for gathering and tracking valuable insights, as well as for managing this data. The ability to gather insights from data is a significant issue for a lot of our clients. For many, this is critical to gathering insights and gauging performance.

Simplified training and onboarding processes

Streamlining processes into one location focuses training efforts. This saves clients a lot of time, is less overwhelming for users, and eliminates a lot of effort in managing multiple tools.

A user-centered process for designing a centralized platform

A well-defined and communicated design process helps align expectations and goals.

Define clear goals and objectives for the platform

Collaborate with stakeholders to understand their business objectives and needs. We often begin with an alignment workshop, which includes engaging exercises such as the MoSCoW (must have, should have, could have, won’t have) method to categorize and prioritize requirements and project scope.

Conduct user research to understand needs and workflows

Interview users to gather insights about their needs, goals, and pain points. We synthesize themes and insights to share findings with stakeholders and recommend design improvements.

Evaluate current tools and processes

Evaluate the products clients currently use and how they fit with their workflows to recommend technical integrations and features for the new platform.

Information architecture to organize and structure content 

Visualize workflows to confirm alignment, help guide design and development scope, and align with platform features. Also, organize and structure content into a visual representation of a site map to show hierarchy and relationships between sections of the product.

Iterative design and prototyping to ensure usability and functionality

Design wireframes, essentially blueprints of the user interface, to quickly communicate content, hierarchy, and functionality for each unique page. This sets the foundation to design a clickable prototype with brand attributes and build a design system with reusable UI components and styles. A clickable prototype provides a tangible experience to validate with users, gather feedback, get stakeholder alignment, and guide development scope and efforts.

Key considerations for designing a successful centralized platform

A unified dashboard for a prioritized view of tasks and data

A dashboard is the first page users encounter, and the most valuable content to prioritize is tasks with the most urgency, notifications, and essential data. This may also include shortcuts to content or functionality that users use most often.

Seamless integration with existing tools and systems

Based on scope and needs, there may be existing mature tools that aren’t worth rebuilding but instead integrate into the centralized platform. The important thing is to design the platform so that this integration provides a seamless user experience and prioritizes features that provide value to users.

Relevance and prioritization

Based on understanding user needs through research, prioritize features that are essential and beneficial. Avoid feature creep, which complicates user workflows. Keep features and interactions simple and intuitive.

Data visualization for reporting and analytics

Centralizing data allows more flexibility for gathering and tracking valuable insights. Use the power of data visualization as an engaging means to communicate complex data. Including customization features can also provide valuable flexibility for users.

Generative AI for added value

There may be ways to simplify or add additional insights to user workflows by using generative AI. There are some things that it currently does really well, such as summarizing large amounts of content. We recently designed a centralized healthcare platform where generative AI summarizes large amounts of clinical notes to provide healthcare coaches with a summary of each patient’s condition and progress. This is in response to the healthcare coaches pain point of the time-consuming task of reading through a repository of patient clinical notes.

Design for all users

Keep the abilities of all users in mind and follow global accessibility guidelines for designing for people with disabilities. Designing a custom platform provides the opportunity to not depend on the usability shortcomings of other platforms. Read our insights on research and design for accessibility.

A design system for consistency, efficiency and scalability

Concurrently designing a design system with reusable UI components and styles, either beginning from an UI kit or from scratch, helps design smarter. It will ensure the look and experience are consistent, provide clear guidance to developers, and help design and scale the product faster.

Feedback and iteration

Use an iterative design process to refine and improve the product based on user feedback and testing results. Initially, a clickable prototype is indispensable to communicate the experience of the platform, gather feedback, and quickly explore updates.

By integrating all workflows into one centralized platform, you can significantly enhance efficiency, productivity, and collaboration. A user-centered design approach, which includes clear goal setting, thorough user research, evaluation of current tools, and iterative prototyping, ensures that the platform aligns with user needs and business objectives.

The post From chaos 
to cohesion: Designing a centralized platform to streamline workflows appeared first on Digital Scientists.

The Essence of a Proof of Concept

A Proof of Concept is essentially a preliminary study – a trial run of your idea. It provides a tangible demonstration of the concept’s feasibility, viability, and desirability, helping businesses to validate and evaluate the potential of their digital product before a full-scale development commitment. Often seen as a prototype or pilot project, a PoC enables stakeholders to visualize the concept’s practicality and potential, guiding informed decisions on its continuation or alteration.

Tailored for Established Companies

For established companies looking to leverage a new digital product to enhance their customer experience (CX) or open new revenue streams, the stakes are high. They need to innovate while protecting their digital investments. Here’s how a PoC can strategically benefit them:

1. Market Relevance and Competition

In a rapidly changing market, staying relevant is vital. A PoC validates if your concept aligns with the market’s current needs, giving you a competitive edge. It ensures you invest in concepts that are contemporary and demanded, steering clear of outdated or irrelevant ideas.

2. Strategic Resource Allocation

When it comes to digital investments, efficient resource allocation is vital.  Companies tend to put their top highest-paid performers on new innovative ideas which might seem like a good idea to start, but without concept validation, it results in significant time and mind share losses for the organization. A PoC ensures resources are directed towards initiatives with a higher likelihood of success, optimizing allocation for projects that demonstrate promising potential. This minimizes wasted efforts and resources on ideas that may not resonate with the market. 

3. Sustained Growth and Innovation

Innovation is the lifeblood of sustained growth. A well-validated PoC enables innovation in a pragmatic way, fostering a culture of creativity backed by business value. It acts as a catalyst for continuous improvement and evolution within the organization.

A Success Story: Transforming Healthcare with CommuniCare

Let’s take a glimpse at CommuniCare, one of the nation’s largest post-acute care organizations. They were seeking to enhance the patient experience of their current patient population. 

Digital Scientists stepped in and created a proof of concept from an innovative idea that eventually grew into an entire custom ecosystem that digitally drives the company today. This transformed how they connected with patients, lowered overhead costs, reduced human error, and allowed for geographic expansion, reaching new patient populations continuously.

Without a phased approach that started with a PoC, CommuniCare’s story could have ended much differently. 

There’s no shortage of apps that have failed on the market, or worse, permanently damaged a company’s reputation. As we say at Digital Scientists, those are the case studies that never get written. The true exception to the rule is an app idea turned into a reality that creates a real impact on a business’s growth trajectory. 

In Closing: A Strategic Step Forward

Ensuring your product idea is viable isn’t just a step; it’s a strategic move. At Digital Scientists, we’ve been creating custom software solutions since 2007, using our business know-how and a proven phased approach to bring ideas to life.

Ready to innovate with confidence and protect your digital investments? Get in touch with us for a free consultation with one of our product experts.

By acing a Proof of Concept, you’re not just testing an idea; you’re positioning your business toward a future of growth and innovation. Take this strategic leap, reduce risks, and maximize your ROI.

The post A proof of concept to protect digital investments appeared first on Digital Scientists.

What role can generative AI play in addressing healthcare challenges and driving innovation within budget constraints? How can health systems leverage technology and digital solutions to improve efficiency, patient care, and overall performance?

Do smaller health systems face unique challenges in implementing digital innovations compared to larger health systems? What are the key considerations for healthcare organizations when deciding to prioritize and invest in AI models and generative AI technologies?

Key Points:

• Economic challenges
• Financial losses
• Efficiency and innovation
• Rural healthcare projects
• Constraints and innovation
• Role of generative AI

Watch the interview

Running time: 28 minutes

This transcription is provided by artificial intelligence. We believe in technology but understand that even the smartest robots can sometimes get speech recognition wrong.

Today on This Week Health.

Understanding the potential of AI in healthcare

Bill Russell: Welcome to Newsday, this week’s health newsroom show. My name is Bill Russell. I’m a former CIO for a 16-hospital system and creator of this week’s health, a set of channels dedicated to keeping health IT staff current and engaged. For five years we’ve been making podcasts that amplify Great thinking to propel healthcare forward. Special thanks to our new stay show partners and we have a lot of them this year, which I’m really excited about.

Cedars Sinai accelerator, clear sense CrowdStrike digital scientists optimum health care IT Pure Storage, Shore test how site LUMION at VMware. We appreciate them investing in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders. Now onto the show. All right, it’s Newsday and today we’re joined by Bob Klein, Chief Executive Officer, digital scientist. Bob, welcome back to the show. This is your second show. Looking forward to it. Hey, Bill, great.

Bob Klein: Yeah, nice to be back again.

Bill Russell: I was doing a little research on you. I was doing that stalking thing on the internet. I just went to LinkedIn. I didn’t really stalk you. But on LinkedIn, I noticed that you University of Florida ba political science with honors, and then Master’s in Russian and Eastern European Studies. Wow. Well, I happen to so we could really talk about the Ukraine and all the things that are going on there you you’re probably fairly well versed in that.

Bob Klein: Yes, sir, is that it’s a an earlier chapter where I worked in logistics in the former Soviet Union. So yes, I set up an office and give us to manage freight that came through Mary Opal, the port there, and we did a lot of business with the oil field. So Chevron and Halliburton and Schlumberger folks like that and it definitely taught me how to be patient and how to work with in a large bureaucracy and how to be persistent and to get things done and the hands on approach, but that’s logistics in general.

Bill Russell: I mean, doing that kind of work in that area of the world. The geopolitical ramifications of everything that’s going on around has the potential to slow down a project or completely change a project or shut it down, for that matter. There have a long time horizon, especially for a lot of those were big capital investments and that’s the kind of extractive industry that’s paying for everything over there. So it’s oil and gas rhenium gold mines, diamonds things like that. I did some work with Caterpillar overseas there. So yeah, definitely, if that’s in there somewhere, although it’s just I just pull those stories out at cocktail parties, Bill.

Bill Russell: All right. Well, we’ll get into health IT and talking about that will hopefully make people feel better about the challenges that healthcare is facing, although I will preface this we’re going to do a story from Becker’s CIOs or healthcare leaders first how 10 it execs are confronting the economic challenges. And I want to preface this with I’ve seen some promising signs. I saw I think it was Cleveland Clinic posted a positive number. I saw inner mountain posted a positive number. There was somebody else and I can’t remember which health system it is posted the positive number so the operationally well run health systems are coming out of this.

They’re starting to post profits we’re seeing the next year. They’re starting to come out. They were underwater, now. They’re above water. But I also did see a couple of health systems post hundreds of millions of losses and it’s those really big health systems. Scale is scales good when it’s going good and scales bad. When it’s going bad. And it’s really hard to turn those chips around. Assume you’re seeing the same thing. Are you feeling the same thing in some of the conversations? Are we starting to feel like we’re coming out of this?

Bob Klein: Well, I mean, I mean, I have to as a service company, or whatever I do feel it’s the kind of economics of it and some of it I see more in this requirement for efficiency is focus on really short term ROI. And I think last time we talked about rationalizing, spend ongoing spending and licenses and investments in new projects, new capabilities, and so they’ve got to get their house in order to be able to hopefully make larger investments in the future. But I think that’s a challenge of it. I worry. For some the larger Yes, there are some challenges with scale.

But there are those regional health systems that have investment funds that can continue to innovate. I worry about smaller hospitals, smaller systems falling behind, right as technologies that leverage to achieve some of the efficiencies and some improved performance, nevermind, expanded share. And so I think we’ve mentioned this where it’s a lot of pressure to improve performance and make improvements and not just hold steady. But that’s the the challenge of the economic cycle.

Bill Russell: It’s interesting as we just coming back to this article, I think it really illuminates some of the things you’re talking about. We have Eric Lee from permanente group, and he talks a lot about alignment. It’s like we need to be aligned with the specific objectives of our organization aligned with strategic priorities, and to focus our investments on the things that are actually going to deliver as you would imagine a permanent take Group CIO would do but then you have Eric Jimenez, CIO for Artesia, New Mexico talking about as rural healthcare. We’re no stranger to economic uncertainty.

It’s like we live in a perpetual state of economic uncertainty. And so we have to focus on very tactical type projects. And he goes on to talk about RPA and how they’re looking at RPA. Others talk about digital transformation and the things that are going on, but a lot of them really, in this article, seem to be talking about, not the big projects that we think are going to have a significant impact long term. It’s the I guess, when economic times are tough. The lens and the focus gets a lot more close. We’re not looking to in three years out for return, we’re looking like 12 months, which is what you were just saying, what’s the danger in doing that? What are they going to miss if they’re focused only on the next 12 months?

Bob Klein: I don’t know if they have a choice. I mean, the danger is they was back thinking about RPA right? So is RPA innovation, or is RPA paving the cow path I’ve got a lot of kind of paper bound processes, a lot of forums, a lot of things that are they’re not necessarily a big lift. I mean, they’re important to do and they’re important things to streamline and save time and create efficiencies but it’s not. I’m not sure if it would pass for innovation, innovation.

We’ll talk more about these other articles that are more out there. But I know I think that’s the CIOs job to balance things where I’ve got to find efficiency, but I also inefficiency in running the way things are internally just in a way it’s improved throughput or kind of speed of the way things move through the system. But also, I’ve got to kind of do more than that. I have to improve share, I have to be able to touch more people at the lower overall costs, not just speed up the throughput, and it’s a different kind of mindset, and I look at what he decided to do internally and we work with vendors or partners to do and I feel like for where things are going that health IT plays an important role and will play a larger role as technology starts is just as is so important for for this system to survive and thrive. Right. It’s not just the care maintenance and feeding of Epic and Cerner and whatever the laundry list of EHRs it’s more of how do you drive? How do you drive the organization and help apply the technology for leverage? So I know that probably didn’t answer your question, but that’s usually and we’re going to talk generative AI we haven’t done an episode of any show. For the last like, since January that we haven’t talked about generative AI. We haven’t talked about these things. And a lot of times people think oh, that’s innovation. Innovation is the new technologies that are on the horizon. I don’t think that’s true. So I want to bend the paper a little bit in two directions.

One is, I think now is the best time to be innovating. And I think innovation within constraints is always better than innovation outside of constraints. And the example it’s a silly example, but I’ve used it for years and people understand it. The most creative people in the world I think are people that take a license plate with like seven characters or six characters. And they like say a whole paragraph in that in those six letters and you’re like, oh my gosh, how did they communicate like, who they are, what they’re interested in? What excites them. I mean, it’s in sixth character. I mean, it really is amazing at times what people can do. And that’s innovation within constraints. We say, Hey, you have seven letters. Now communicate who you are, what you’re excited about in those seven letters, and they do well when you have financial problems. Now it’s like, alright, what are the problems we really need to solve what’s really going to move it forward? And there is I guess, incremental innovation, if you will. We’re doing the same things. And we’re just going to do them better.

RPA falls into that category. We’re going to do it better than we did it before. But then in that constraint of, hey, we’re financially challenged, you start to look at it and say can we do this thing with less? Nurses? Can we do it with less doc? I know that’s controversial to say, but at the end of the day, we don’t have enough of them, and we won’t have enough of them in our lifetime or ever again. I’ve heard a physician telling me we will never have enough physicians ever again. Period. Like we don’t train enough of them. There aren’t enough people going into the business. Therefore that’s the constraint. That’s the license plate. Okay, if that’s the license plate, we can’t keep doing things the same way we’ve been doing it that requires more labor than we have. Therefore, how do we do it differently? It’s that line of questioning inside of constraints that leads us to Alright, I think we can have generative AI respond to our inbox. I think we can have chat bots that interact with more people in the community than we did before. As long as we have some sort of parameters around that chatbot that we know it’s going to be delivering high quality answers and those kinds of things. I’m curious what your thoughts are as I throw that stuff out. Bob Klein Yeah. No, I mean, I think back to your earlier question, I mean, the risk is when you cut budgets, or is people stop willing to experiment and try, right? And innovation is sometimes just we need folks to be working to try and make things better and looking at some of the same measures and have enough time in the day to run experiments and attempt.

So your point about nurses I think about the remote nurses that are on the iPad next to the patient bed of folks that are trying to do that and just to create leverage for the nurses who are on the floor. You don’t necessarily have to come into every room when someone presses the button, or the neti robot that runs that does deliveries across the hospital to save somebody’s time. So a nurse doesn’t have to do it, right. So it seems it’s a little kind of, yes, it gets attention slots, er.

The practicality of AI in healthcare

Those aren’t the only things that are out there just finding things that come to mind, but I think that that’s where they have to keep going because everyone wants to make improvements and like we said last time, there still is this impetus from COVID to reflect lessons learned and to make the changes that I needed.

And I Yeah, AI is just another thing that’s in this list of things that they can be working on and touch digital and technology and software, but it’s almost it’s hard. To prioritize. What are the things that we can do that can have an impact, and we can test out so it doesn’t have to be this big bang effect on anything because that’s really disruptive. Right? So how do I test things out? And I’ve got go no go decisions. It’s not everything is going to be a good idea. And that’s okay. Right. So that’s, that’s why I hope the smaller health systems have the opportunity because in a way, they’re closer to their population. And don’t you don’t know what they could come up with. And I think the there’s this efficiency call but I think there’s also this clinical insights and clinical relevance, like how it is like your we all go to the nurses and we talked about that and we talk about other things, but a lot of opportunity out there that’s digital is tied to things that are clinically significant.

And it’s, I think about all the hardware and all in the alert fatigue as a kind of service provider in this space. We’re not trying to tell the providers what to do. We’re trying to give them insights and create some efficiencies for them.

It’s like, how does the (artificial intelligence and machine learning) technology work for you? 

So he reduced cognitive load in a way that’s like how technology work for you. It’s not all about you know, we’re replacing people or they’re making them more effective.

Bill Russell: Alex’s Lemonade Stand was started by my daughter Alex in our front yard, and by the time she was four, she knew there was more that could be done and she told us she was gonna have a lemonade stand and she wanted to give the money to her doctor so they can help kids like her. It was cute, right? She’s gonna cure cancer with a lemonade stand like only a four year old would think that but from day one, it just exceeded anything we could have imagined because people responded so generously to her.

Bill Russell: We are working to give back and are excited to partner with Alex’s Lemonade Stand this year. Having a child with cancer is one of the most painful and difficult situations a family can face. At Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation. They understand the personal side of the diagnosis, the resources needed and the impact that funded research can have for better treatments and more cures. You can get more information about them at Alex’s lemonade.org. We are asking you to join us. You can visit our website. There’s a banner at the top and it says Alex’s Lemonade Stand there. You can click on that and give money directly to the lemonade stand itself. Now back to the show. We have three three stories here. Hippocratic is building a large language model for healthcare. Second one is how will gender have aI impact healthcare and the third one is just calm down about GPT four already. It’s interesting.

I mean, clearly we’re at the peak of the hype cycle. I saw a post just this past week where somebody said for the last any number of years we’ve really elevated the Chief Digital Officer title and we said there’s gonna be digital transformation. And because so much emphasis has been put on AI recently their supposition was that we will have chief AI officers. Well, I’m not sure that we will. But the Chief Digital Officer or someone within the organization is going to start to have a very keen focus on AI models bringing AI into healthcare, but they’re essentially saying look, this is where the change is going to happen. And so when we focus on just the next year, one of the things that happens is we take our eye off the ball on something that’s a big change that’s happening, and it’s going to hit us in in two years or three years. And if we’re not working on that big change today, it becomes an emergency in two or three years like oh, how do we catch up? And so we’re always playing catch up, because we’re not looking at the big macro changes in these things. Generative AI is a big macro change to healthcare.

Bob Klein: Yes, I think it is there. But I guess my question back to you around it is the role that each health system is going to play right. So I have some real bounce about from a macro change being is everyone we’re waiting around for open AI and Microsoft nuance or whoever to show up with some care model and some insights that are going to be built into a bunch of different software products or epic or Cerner.

Whoever, but essentially, the wild gardens that today have all the data and have all the insights like how much can the health systems create their own capability in this area, and they leverage these models like or even open source versions of these models to create their own capabilities because they have unique populations. And some of these articles talk about things that are more patient facing but I think the challenge is creating a personalized care model for each and every individual because health is tied to and I got comorbidities and it just put your arms around this other data for one patient. And can we make any sense for just that one patient and for the provider or the care team that’s trying to support that one person and then or even just somebody’s population, a particular health system so because they can be so different, we do a bunch of we do a bunch of work and post acute care and are building things for them.

But that means I don’t we don’t have much overlap with pediatric. Right. So it feels like there’s an opportunity there. If there’s funding and interest, and honestly I think that’s ultimately differentiated. But I guess my question Bill is, are the health system’s gonna sit back and wait and expect kind of vendors to fill the void and provide all these insights or could be amazon it could be others, or are they going to take the initiative and build some things on their own and get closer to the problem?

Bill Russell: Yeah, I will about a limb here. 60% are going to wait for epic to do whatever epic does for them. If you’re an epic client, you’ve almost been trained to wait for Verona to figure things out integrated put it in there and because it and I don’t say that disparagingly, I mean, you don’t want to get ahead of Verona because if they come out with something after you’ve gone and done something innovative, eventually you’ve invested in areas that you really don’t need to, but we’ve been trained in 60% We’ll wait for the end.

And it could be Meditec. It could be Cerner. It could be whoever I mean, well, if they’re going to do whatever they’re going to do, we’ll wait for them to do it and I think 60% will wait for that to happen or work with them as a partner. To do that. I saw UNC just announced they’re doing something with epic around generative AI, Stanford is UC Davis is and others. So partners are stepping up and saying, Look, we’re not going to do this ourselves. We want to partner with you. You have these capabilities. You’re also our source of truth, our system of record.

So we’re going to do that. This is the vision I think people should be working towards and I don’t know how many will be working towards this. I do know that Amazon will be working towards the CVS we’ll be working towards this. Wal Mart we’ll be working towards this and Walgreens will be working towards this and optim will be moving towards this and UnitedHealthcare and that is Bill Gates was talking about this and I know we’re not supposed to talk to us people’s names who are currently being spirited in the runner media but the Bill Gates is still a great mind from a technology standpoint, and he looked at GPT for a long time ago. And when he was interviewed, he said we are as close as we’ve ever been to everyone having an AI assistant, a physician having an AI system a nurse having an AI system, who understands their job, knows their data can find data for them, and just helps them to be more effective all the time every day.

So we’re gonna have that aspect of it, including your pharmacist, you name it across the board, everybody’s gonna have an AI assistant, then I would go one step. further and say I think every individual in the community is gonna have an AI assistant that is going to help them with their health, either navigating health care, or understanding the questions we have about health should I eat this should I not eat this? Is gut health really important? How important is exercise how important I know some of these questions to doctors are going to be silly, but these are the kind of Google search questions that get asked. And if we have a an assistant, we all have an assistant that is geared towards making us healthier. The question becomes who is providing that? Right so Hippocratic is one of the stories and they are essentially taking generative AI to med school. And they’re gonna have very specific training around that model so that it can be trusted and it’s going to be used to help people to remain healthy.

My question and I think his question you’re asking is, as a health system if our CIO for a health system, if I were still at St. Joe’s we had 16 hospitals, multiple communities in multiple states. Would I want that provider of that information to come from Hippocratic or CVS or somebody else or what I want it to come from St. Joe’s? And the answer is, it has to come from St. Joe’s because if it doesn’t, you become irrelevant. In health. All you become is whatever they leave you. If it’s the high acuity, high risk care, whatever they leave you that’s what you’re gonna end up with, if you’re not going to be relevant in the day to day conversation of the patient, or even the consumer and their health. Then whoever is there, they’re the ones who are going to direct the economic flow of where that person goes for care.

Bob Klein: I don’t I mean that’s why I feel like the health system has the opportunity but has to put the entire all the pieces together for the patient and to be trusted because you have all the data, and that includes that doesn’t include everything that’s in it’s not necessarily everything. It’s in the HR today. Right? So genomic data, other data so I work a lot with telehealth data, other information and there’s I don’t know there’s all this focus on efficiency. And I’ve we’ve I’ve built something with that uses Changi VT four, and it’s use it as a language model and helps us create something that’s really just the clinical note from a telehealth encounter, and that’s just efficiency, but over time there are other kinds of services being created that will plug in that look at voice biomarkers, for example. So based on our conversation, they might just say, Hey, Bob, you sound like there’s something off, right and it could be some marker based on word choice. Speech, pace, things like that.

And it could say, Okay, let’s find this person for follow up. Right, something seems off, but you have to be capturing that data. You have to be capturing all of my previous telehealth sessions. So right now, not a lot has been recorded. So it’s not recorded. It’s not transcribed. It’s not routine. And so I just look at telehealth is just as another as another sensor for data, just like the in person interactions, all the labs, genomic data so complete data model for that patient. And that’s how the health system has knows the most and knows all the details where this kind of one size fits all on the front end, based on some enormous model isn’t going to be great because like I said, I’ve got published acute 85 year olds and five year olds in the same model. And it started it’s like okay, this just seems to make sense. So it’s going to be super broad or narrow based on the population. I think that’s where the opportunity is. I just don’t know if anyone’s gonna take it.

Bill Russell: Yep. Yeah, the narrow models is the direction more personalized, highly personalized models. I love this discussion. We’re gonna continue this discussion probably in four or five weeks, you’re going to come back on the show, there’ll be a whole new set of articles and we’ll see how much we were right about and how much you know how much has changed. It’s to be honest with you. This space is moving really fast.

Assessing the current market and benefits of AI in healthcare

Bill Russell: It feels to me like every day I opened an article and I read a bunch yesterday about Google’s response to GPT four, but they have a little different bent their models a little different, and it’s better at some things than GPT four, but it’s not as good with text and all that stuff. And so it’s really highly geared towards surgeon.

Bob Klein: The logical inferences aren’t there and these models and so it doesn’t know what it’s doing in terms of the language model for tension PT for us. So just to be cautious about that. My recommendation is use it for what it’s really designed to do. If you go in there, and Bill if you’ve got a long email that you want to reduce the paragraph, you can do that right and it’s okay is that does create some efficiency or automate some of the things where some of the correspondence or stuff like that, I think that that the providers are already using it.

Bill Russell: Well, and I love that model. You said I mean, you take a transcript and you turn it into a soap note. Bob Klein Yeah, yeah. So there can it’s I think it’s that’s disruptive because Microsoft spent $20 billion to buy nuance three years ago, and was that really worth it? And I think each of the health systems need access to this kind of technology for that efficiency we’re talking about, but over time, it’s an efficiency. It’s mostly speech to text which has gotten to be really good, right? And that’s the for me with whisper, which is part of open AI and then it’s like, start creating your own models, build your own model, get smart about your own population. And I hope that their health systems are willing to give that a try and kind of start to experiment, but to go easy with everything that we were reading from hype cycle. Yep, absolutely.

Bill Russell: Bob, thanks for your time. Really appreciate it. Great conversation. Thanks. Thanks so much, Bill. And that is the news. If I were CIO today, I think what I would do is I’d have every team member listening to a show just like this one, and trying to have conversations with them after the show about what they’ve learned, and what we can apply to our health system. If you want to support this week health one of the ways you can do that is you can recommend our channels to a peer or to one of your staff members. We have two channels this week health newsroom and this week health conference.

You can check them out anywhere you listen to podcast, which is a lot of places Apple, Google, overcast, Spotify, you name it, you can find it there. You can also find us on YouTube. And of course, you could go to our website this week. health.com. And we want to thank our Newsday partners again, a lot of them and we appreciate their participation in the show. Cedar Sinai accelerator, clear sense. CrowdStrike digital scientists optimum, Pure Storage, short test, Tao site LUMION and VMware, who have invested in our mission to develop the next generation of health leaders

The post Benefits of AI in Healthcare appeared first on Digital Scientists.

The main objective of conducting accessibility usability testing is to understand how assistive technology affects the experience of using the product and to ensure that the system
operates similarly for disabled individuals as it does for non-disabled individuals.
There are many forms of assistive technology; for example, individuals with visual
difficulties might use screen readers or magnifiers, while people with auditory disabilities
rely on captions or hearing aids to experience multimedia.

Important aspects to consider in accessibility usability testing

01. Recruiting a larger number of participants. 

Why is this important? Five individuals might share a diagnosis but have completely different experiences. For example, individuals with the same hearing loss may use very different communication modalities. Some individuals might use a hearing aid to speak, others might communicate with sign language, and another participant may prefer only visual captions. 

Another reason to recruit a larger group is that you might have a group all with the same diagnosis and using the exact same accessibility software, but despite this, you will also find an array of experiences. Some individuals can have years of experience using it, while others will be new to using the tool and are still learning it or adjusting to their own preferences. 

To truly represent and cater to all people when doing accessibility testing, it’s crucial to understand and incorporate a larger range of testers and assistive technology to impact your results. 

02. Reach out to Communities 

We seek to establish connections with community partners with the necessary expertise to cater to their community’s unique requirements. To this end, we have worked with non-profit organizations serving people with disabilities. Other community partners we have considered are online communities and advocacy groups. One of the major advantages of partnering with these communities is that they not only have key informational materials that help our education, they also have specialists to go to for support and consulting, and often have assistive technology specialists on hand who can provide us with additional support when testing products in a usability test.  

03. From start to finish, ensure an accessible experience

At Digital Scientists, we love to use a journey map to plan our usability testing sessions. We suggest using one to plan an accessible usability testing session to ensure that the participants’ full journey (before, during, and after) is accessible. 

Every touchpoint where you have contact with your interviewees is carefully planned. It is important for us to make our participants feel like we have actively thought about their experience. Some key aspects of the journey to consider are:

Accommodate for different communication needs 

Prioritize accessible communication and consider the needs of interviewees by offering clear descriptors in emails, easy-to-access passwords, and carefully researched communication platforms that accommodate various accessibility needs. Additionally, express that participants should bring their own hardware and proactively inquire about any specific requirements they may have.

Offer location alternatives

When conducting usability tests, we offer remote and in-person options. For remote testing, ensure the platform is accessible and allow participants time to install prototypes onto their software. If opting for in-person testing, offer flexibility to accommodate the participants’ accessibility needs. This includes selecting a location based on their requirements or/and testing at their home. In either case, communicate with them beforehand to ensure their specific needs are understood and where they would feel most comfortable.

For testing in a common space, ensure accessibility. This includes checking for steps, elevators, door width, table height, and room size to accommodate service dogs, caretakers, or interpreters. Verify that the toilet is accessible. Furthermore, consider transportation to and from the location to ensure accessibility. In participants’ homes, also ensure that you understand their needs and that if they have any requirements for you to step into their place, you respect them.

Include time flexibility in your session schedule 

Accessibility usability testing cannot follow a one-size-fits-all approach. For this reason, we tailor each session to meet the needs of every participant we interview. Our testing process involves two task lists: a shorter one with essential must-have questions and a longer list with additional tasks we can use if the participant is willing. We allocate extra time for our team and for participants to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Sometimes software setup or unforeseen issues may cause delays. However, we remain flexible and value participants who share detailed feedback and opinions. Ultimately, we prioritize meeting everyone’s needs and ensuring the process runs smoothly.

Offer communication alternatives when moderating

Ensuring that moderation is accessible starts with making sure that all consent forms, non-disclosure agreements, instructions, directions, tasks, or forms are written and presented in clear and simple language. Provide alternative ways to communicate instructions or ideas in case participants need additional clarification. 

Additionally, handouts should be designed with participants’ preferences and need. For example, offer the option of receiving documents by email in accessible formats such as HTML, PDF, or plain text. Another important practice is to emphasize at the beginning of the test, that we are testing the website or product, not the participants themselves, to make them feel at ease.

During the testing session, we introduce ourselves and any observers in a way that makes participants feel comfortable. We briefly introduce ourselves, explain the setup, and tell participants what to expect during the session. We always reassure them that they can stop the session at any time.

04. Maintain privacy of information 

During usability tests, participants may share personal and sensitive information, such as private health information, personal stories, or sometimes protected data. We are HIPAA compliant and ensure the confidentiality of our interviewees. We make sure that they all know that they can opt out of the test or have the choice to stop at any time of the testing process for whatever reason. It’s crucial to take necessary measures to respect their privacy and safeguard all their data.

05. Be open to critique

One of the things we enjoy the most about accessibility testing is opening ourselves up to receive critique, as it allows us to improve our products and testing methods. We can improve our products and testing methods by listening to user feedback to meet diverse needs better. User feedback also enables us to make targeted improvements that address specific concerns. By doing so, we hope to continue to innovate and gain new insights that inspire us to create even better products and services.

Accessibility is an on-going effort 

For us, accessibility usability testing is a journey where we prioritize the comfort and support of all participants during our usability testing sessions from start to finish. We believe this approach benefits both our participants and our clients by leading to more accurate and valuable insights to improve their products. Ultimately making your products accessible will not only improve the experience for people with disabilities but also benefits seniors, those with temporary or situational limitations, and even users without disabilities. However, simply meeting accessibility guidelines is not enough – real usability testing is necessary to uncover usability issues and ensure the best possible user experience. Accessibility for us is an ongoing effort and integrated into the development process rather than treated as a yes/no checklist item to prioritize all users’ needs truly.

The post Improving accessibility through user research and usability testing appeared first on Digital Scientists.

In today’s market, users expect a seamless experience, and if your product feels outdated they will quickly move on to your competitors. But updating your interface is easier said than done, and it can be overwhelming to know where to start.

Over the years, we have assessed and diagnosed products in wide ranging industries with varying complexity. We understand that each product is unique, and we take the time to learn about our customer’s  business and their customers to provide personalized recommendations on initial steps they can take to modernize their platform. 

We are firm believers in talking to real users, and when we do so, we want to make sure we have a clear understanding of where the platform is today. A way we do that is by performing a UI Audit. Running a UI audit will allow our team to thoroughly and objectively identify critical design issues and establish recommendations for next steps so our customers can regain their competitive advantage.

What is a UI Audit? 

A UI Audit  is a standardized design assessment performed by our UX experts to evaluate a website, app, or product based on established industry usability principles. 

One of the methodologies we use in our UI Audit is a Heuristic Evaluation, a methodology that was developed by Jacob Nielsen. The evaluation consists of 10 key principles covering various aspects of human-centered design. To ensure consistency, each principle is rated on a 0-5 scale. A score of 0 indicates a negative user experience, while a score of 5 indicates a successful user experience. During the evaluation process, the expert identifies potential issues that could negatively impact the user experience and provide actionable recommendations to improve the design accordingly.

Who is involved in the UI Audit?

Typically our team of user experience experts is composed of one lead or senior designer, a user experience researcher, and a product manager. Our experts have knowledge and training in design evaluations, information architecture, visual design, user-centered design, user metrics, strategic thinking, and product and design principles. When evaluating design, their background and expertise allows them to understand the implications and intricacies of how these play out in the designs. Upon completing their assessments, the evaluators compile their results to share and make actionable recommendations for your product based on the importance and frequency, and severity of the issues discovered.

When to conduct a UI Audit?

Our clients often express concerns about their product’s usability and feel frustrated about not knowing where to start. They understand that there is a problem but are not sure which issue to tackle first. While they may have identified certain pain points, they need help identifying specific design principles that hinder user experience. 

If you hear any of the following questions or statements, a UI Audit might be a great starting point to evaluate the design of your product:

What are the benefits of conducting audits?

UI audits are quick and accessible

UI audits offer a quick and accessible way to assess the validity of a design, particularly when resources and time are limited. Additionally, they provide a baseline assessment to identify areas for improvement and set up a well-organized plan with a solid foundation established through the UX evaluation; your team can confidently understand where to start in your plan of attack to take corrective actions to enhance the user experience and identifying specific steps that need to be taken during the redesign process to achieve significant improvements in usability and overall user satisfaction.

UI audits focus on user research and improve usability testing down the line

By conducting a thorough UX evaluation prior to usability testing, you can minimize the likelihood of encountering basic usability issues during testing and ensure that the feedback you receive from users is more reliable and insightful. When usability testing is conducted on a design that has not been adequately evaluated, the feedback received from users can be compromised. Users may struggle with basic usability issues that could have been easily resolved before the testing phase. This can lead to a less effective testing process and less actionable feedback.

UI audits help define metrics to make informed decisions and measure the impact of your redesign investment

Utilizing metrics to evaluate the design, UX assessments help determine actionable steps to get a product back on track and improve overall user experience. The use of clear metrics in UX evaluations allows for greater clarity and objectivity in determining the impact of design and determining the next steps, such as clarifying objectives, focus user testing, reallocating resources, or revising timelines.

Are you struggling to define where to begin redesigning your product for a better user experience?

At Digital Scientists, we recommend UI evaluations for anyone considering redesigning an existing product. These evaluations can help optimize the user experience and ensure that key design principles are met and integrated into your new product experience. By doing so, your company can modernize its product, regain its competitive advantage, increase sales, and become the leading competitor that others strive to emulate. If you’re interested in learning more about UX evaluations and how they can benefit your team, company, and product, let’s talk.

The post Outdated interface, losing customers: How to know when it’s time to redesign your product appeared first on Digital Scientists.

Creating products that everyone can use, is a core foundation of our mindset and process. Accessibility – designing products that people with disabilities can use, is an essential part of this.

Achieving accessibility includes following international web accessibility standards, as well as research and testing to understand our users and their needs.

International accessibility standards

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) develops international standards for the Web – HTML, CSS, and many more. Their Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops technical specifications, guidelines, techniques, and supporting resources that describe accessibility solutions. 

They create Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG), considered to be the international standard for web accessibility. In the United States, this has been adopted by Section 508 – accessibility requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, funded, or used by the Federal Government.

WCAG is consistently updated. We are currently on 2.1, with 2.2 expected in Spring of 2023.

WCAG is based on four principals and 13 guidelines

Perceivable

Users must be able to perceive the information being presented

• Text alternatives for non-text content
• Alternatives for audio and video
• Adaptable content that retains information and structure
• Make it easier to see and hear content

Operable

Users must be able to operate the interface

• Make all functionality available from a keyboard
• Provide enough time to read and use content
• Avoid causing seizures or physical reactions
• Provide ways to help users navigate, find content, and determine where they are
• xMake is easier to operate functionality for inputs beyond a keyboard

Understandable

Users must be able to understand the information as well as the operation of the user interface

• Make text content readable and understandable
• Make pages appear and operate in predictable ways
• Input assistance to help users avoid and correct mistakes

Robust

Users must be able to access content as technologies advance

• Maximize compatibility with current and future technology

Success criteria

WCAG 2.1 guidelines are categorized into three levels of conformance, in order to meet the needs of different groups and situations.

Industry standard is WCAG 2.1 AA (which also means conformance to A).

Training and internal processes are needed to implement and evaluate conformance to success criteria. Creating documentation provides an artifact that measures things such as conformance. Documentation may be requested by clients, or may be needed to fill out a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) that details the level of conformance.

Accessibility is a shared responsibility

Accessibility should be considered from the beginning of a project. This ensures that it’s part of the process, and minimizes added time and expense of going back to fix accessibility issues.

Product Manager

Leads the product and incorporates accessibility into the process with clear checkpoints, roles and responsibilities.

User Researcher

Includes people with disabilities during research and testing, to help ensure they are understood and their needs are met.

User Experience Designer

Considers all of the ways people use a product, to provide options for an optimal user experience for all users.

Visual Designer

Makes design decisions such as color, typography, and layout, to influence how content is viewed and understood.

Content Author

Leads how content is structured and written, to improve readability and understanding.

Developer

Uses techniques such as semantic coding and ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications), to ensure that the codebase can accommodate all users and assistive technology.

QA / Tester

Checks accessibility success criteria compliance before release. This may be a dedicated role, or it may include Designers and Developers checking their work, with a final QA before release.

Be apprehensive of quick fixes

Companies advertise overlays, plugins, and toolbar widgets as cheap and automated accessibility fixes. Many people with disabilities are sharing that these are not effective solutions. Some of the issues are:

• Override assistive technology settings, and force users to learn a whole new system
• Don’t repair underlying issues, therefore they don’t achieve full WCAG compliance
• Loading speed and performance are out of your control
• May conflict with your user’s preference for data privacy and protection

We’re committed to creating products that everyone can use

As the world’s largest minority, people with disabilities deserve to access digital content. Understanding and incorporating accessibility guidelines can be a complex process. Research and testing takes time. However, it’s not just about checking off boxes to mitigate legal liabilities, it’s about doing the right thing and ensuring everyone can access digital content, tools, products, and services. By creating accessible digital products we can help ensure that people with disabilities can easily access helpful information online, protect digital investments, and can have full access to a wide range of online services.

As we continue to design, build, and learn, we promise to work hard to understand the needs of people with disabilities, for the best user experience possible.

Resources

W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
Strategies, standards, and resources to make the Web accessible to people with disabilities.

WCAG quick reference guide
A customizable quick reference to WCAG 2 requirements and techniques.

Section 508
The United States Government’s website dedicated to Section 508 and accessibility requirements.

ADA
Guidance on how state and local governments, and businesses open to the public can make sure that their websites are accessible to people with disabilities.

The post Accessibility: How to create accessible digital products appeared first on Digital Scientists.

Accessibility recognizes that people interact with technology in diverse ways and removes barriers so that people with disabilities can more fully engage with digital content, tools, products, and services.

Statistics and facts about disabilities

People with disabilities are the world’s largest minority

Almost everyone is likely to experience some form of disability—temporary or permanent, at some point in life.

— Sources: CDC; WHO

Types of disabilities

Physical

Amputation, arthritis, paralysis, repetitive stress injury

Auditory

Hard of hearing, deafness

Visual

Color blindness, low vision, blindness

Speech

Mute, dysarthria (weakness or paralysis of muscles for speech), stutter

Cognitive

Learning, neurological, ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, mental health disabilities (medications may also have side effects), memory impairments, learning disabilities, seizure disorders

Disabilities can be permanent, temporary, or situational

Why is accessibility important?

01. Accessibility is part of being inclusive

The web offers valuable resources and services that everyone deserves to access, and that people with disabilities rely on.

02. Accessibility improves the user experience

Essential for some, useful for all. Anyone can experience periods of limitations, or prefer different ways of finding and consuming information. Some benefits are…

• High contrast helps during glare
• Voice recognition helps keep hands free
• Captions help in a loud environment

03. Accessibility drives innovation

Accessibility features in products and services often solve unanticipated problems. Sometimes limitations can propel us to think through problems differently and come up with unique solutions.

04. Accessibility minimizes legal risk

Many countries have laws requiring digital accessibility, and the issue is of increased legal concern. In the United States, there are two main laws governing digital accessibility – the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508.

The ADA is a law that protects people with disabilities in many areas of public life. Title II applies to web accessibility for State and local governments. Title III applies to businesses that are open to the public.

Section 508 establishes accessibility requirements for electronic and information technology developed, maintained, funded, or used by the Federal Government.

05. Clients may require accessibility

In addition to client requirements, every federal agency or any organization that interacts with a federal agency is required to complete a legally binding Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT)—it details a product’s level of conformance with International Web Accessibility Content Guidelines (WCAG).

06. Accessibility adds value

Some clients may not realize the importance or value of accessibility. This gives us an opportunity to establish the value of our contributions to the success of their product. It may also give us a marketing edge against competing agencies.

Although accessibility adds some additional effort, it will be a much larger effort to have to go back and fix a product.

07. Accessibility may affect your reputation and marketability

Diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts are important to business success and reputation. People may prefer to support companies who share their values and who design products that fit their needs.

08. Accessibility positively affects SEO

There’s a considerable overlap between features that improve accessibility and SEO performance. 

• Metadata
• Image Alt text
• Link anchor text
• Heading tag structure
• Audio and video transcriptions

How people with disabilities access digital content

People with disabilities use assistive technologies or adaptive techniques to access digital content. In order to use these successfully, they rely on content that has been designed and coded following accessibility standards, and that has been tested.

We’re committed to creating products that everyone can use

As the world’s largest minority, people with disabilities deserve to access digital content. Understanding and incorporating accessibility guidelines can be a complex process. Research and testing takes time. However, it’s not just about checking off boxes to mitigate legal liabilities, it’s about doing the right thing and ensuring everyone can access digital content, tools, products, and services.

As we continue to design, build, and learn, we promise to work hard to understand the needs of people with disabilities, for the best user experience possible.

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