Digital Challenge
Last month I was tripping, physically, not chemically or in any particular gangsta way, however I have just finished, Dear Mama a documentary about the story of Tupak Shakurs mum, a Black Panther activist.
With a (beyond) eclectic music taste, where you will find the unique combination of 80’s Rap, Ludovico Einaudi, R.E.M and Atom & His Package all side by side. I wouldn’t say Dear Mama is for all of you, but possibly it was just for me.
This month, my toes are cold, I’m writing this from a shaded corner of the garden, where the sun is on it’s lunch break and the breeze is freestyling across my ankles.
The woods called yesterday, garlic banked the dogs trail like an ovation. The whole space had seemingly turned greener than Snoop Dogg’s stash overnight.
Spring’s encore.
And then there was Merlin.
No, not the bearded sorcerer. Merlin is an app. An absolute wand-waver of bird song recognition. You stand still in a bird chorus, it listens, and up pop the pics of who’s currently on vocals, like Shazam for robins.
Previously you’re in an open-air gig, blind to who’s performing, be it The Eagles or Cheryl Crow. Only with Merlin, now you know.
Even if, like me, you couldn’t tell your tits apart, Merlin makes the complex accessible and simple, to carefully identify the whole orchestra and pick out the individual voice.
Which got me thinking about personas, the idea of identifying the one voice we need.
Last April I mused about your ideal dinner party guests, using personas to guide the guest list. There must be something about this time of year as, this year, I’ve gone a step further and written a detailed guide to personas with a process for how to find them.
Something else flashed across my brain too, accessibility.
Yesterday I met someone at a networking event who builds accessible digital experiences. Think websites, PDFs, apps, all designed to work for everyone.
That means colour contrast for low-vision users. Buttons big enough for clumsy thumbs. Pages navigable by keyboard, not just mouse. In principle, it’s obvious. In practice, it’s the bit that gets tossed when someone cries “Make it pop!”
When I asked how often people actually come to her for accessibility, she smiled. “They come for the website,” she said. “I bring up the rest.”
I can relate, and its also the perfect metaphor for this newsletter. We’re all selling something. But the real value (what really matters) isn’t always what gets asked for. It’s what gets revealed through the work, like the bird hidden in the canopy.
Accessibility isn’t about compliance, it’s about care.
It’s about thinking beyond ourselves.
There’s a clear crossover here with performance too. Slow sites, whizzy graphics, complex functionality these are accessibility issues too. And they annoy everyone, not just screen reader users.
The greatest modern design companies absolutely nail this. Not with bells and whistles, but with restraint. Every click, every swipe, intentional. Minimal. Beautifully usable.
An 80s remote control compared to a modern Apple device.
And Google knows it. That’s why technical SEO is the foundation of ranking. The first step is not about content, it’s about how fast your page loads, whether it can be read by a machine, and whether it feels like a cul-de-sac or a motorway.
Speaking of which, I mentioned last month the simple genius of UK motorway signage. The Government Digital Service framework does the same for websites.
It’s available for all to follow, will keep code clean and budgets down, my challenge is for you to consider what kind of remote you wish to create with your next website redesign.
And even when we get the experience right, we can still get the intent wrong.
In my calendar I had a clash of two meetings the other day, both looked like some sort of webinar, and on closer inspection, neither seemed like the kind of thing I wanted to attend.
It dawned on me that I hadn’t signed up to these (you don’t need consent to send a calendar invite – just an email address) so firstly, in the future, be prepared to have your calendar targeted for spam like your mailbox currently is.
Secondly, this is the pointy end of digital, when UX becomes a funnel, when users become a number, where personas become conversion tools and when community is just a checkbox for “marketing opportunities.”
But what if we flipped it?
What if we treated digital spaces like woodland walks?
Quiet. Respectful.
Where not all minds that wander are lost, and none are to be “sold at”.
Where you don’t need to shout to be heard. Where users(actual people) feel welcome, not hunted.
Merlin just listened. It helped. And in doing so, it earned trust.
There’s wizardry in that.
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