Column: Enterprise UX

Human beings are drawn to stories, which help us make sense of our world by letting us share others’ experiences as though they were our own. We feel characters’ struggles as they navigate difficult challenges and rejoice with them when they finally achieve their goals or share their sorrows if they do not. Stories help us learn to feel empathy—a critical trait for any UX professional.

Most importantly, stories are memorable. According to Jennifer Aaker, Professor of Marketing at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, using a story to convey information is up to “22 times more memorable than facts alone.”

Telling a story can help influence the opinions of others in ways that few other modes of communication can. The value of storytelling extends to how we present ourselves and our abilities professionally. Having participated in dozens of on-site portfolio reviews over the years—sitting on both sides of the review table—I’ve found that the most effective UX-portfolio presentations have one thing in common: the candidate told a story. Read More

For anyone who designs user interfaces, accessibility and its associated value and impacts are important design considerations. However, accessibility best practices alone do not adequately address all aspects of human capabilities and people’s differences—whether physical or cognitive or a combination of the two. Individuals’ backgrounds, cultures, and other geographical and socioeconomic variables play a part as well.

Moreover, breaking down barriers and empowering humans of all capabilities becomes more fraught and challenging within the context of industrial automation, where a modernization lag and inertia regarding digital transformation to maximize the latest technologies and innovations still exist—which has negative impacts on fostering inclusivity. At Rockwell Automation, we’re making progress in cultivating inclusive-design practices that enable industrial workers in some of the most challenging contexts on the planet and uncovering best practices that could benefit any organization. Read More

In Part 1 of this series, we defined inclusive design and acknowledged its ever-growing impact, including on industrial automation. We then described inclusive design challenges in industrial automation and previewed how we solve them. Now, in Part 2, we’ll delve more deeply into a few of these design solutions, focusing on the following efforts:

• considering diverse human factors in designing hardware
• evolving our terminology to be more inclusive
• weaving accessibility into our common design system

We now plan to extend this series to three parts. In Part 3, we’ll cover some additional activities and solutions that merit their own column. Read More