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<DIV>A friend just sent the below article about Pinterest to me. I thought some
of you might have an interest in it as well ...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Eileen</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Pinterest Just Redesigned Its App For Blind People Article link:</DIV>
<DIV><A
href="https://www.fastcodesign.com/90169317/pinterest-just-redesigned-its-app-for-">https://www.fastcodesign.com/90169317/pinterest-just-redesigned-its-app-for-</A></DIV>
<DIV>blind-people</DIV>
<DIV>Here's how the company confronted its own shortcomings on inclusive</DIV>
<DIV>design-and systemically redesigned its app for everyone.</DIV>
<DIV>Last year, Long Cheng sat down with a group of engineers as they
studied</DIV>
<DIV>people using Pinterest. For Cheng, lead designer at the company, this
sort</DIV>
<DIV>of user testing was commonplace. But that day, something was different.
The</DIV>
<DIV>testers weren't thirtysomething moms, or whatever stereotypical
demographic</DIV>
<DIV>pops in your head when you picture one of Pinterest's 200 million
users.</DIV>
<DIV>They were people with a range of visual impairments, from macular</DIV>
<DIV>degeneration to complete blindness. And Cheng wanted to see how well
they</DIV>
<DIV>could use the app.</DIV>
<DIV>To his dismay, many couldn't even get past the sign-up screen. People</DIV>
<DIV>literally couldn't even create an account. While iOS and Android each
have</DIV>
<DIV>an accessibility feature-called Voice Over and Talk Back,
respectively-which</DIV>
<DIV>read aloud the buttons and options on the screen for visually impaired
users</DIV>
<DIV>to navigate, Pinterest had failed to properly label its own user
interface</DIV>
<DIV>for this feature to even work properly. Similarly, when people did</DIV>
<DIV>eventually get into the app, recipes read aloud would be missing steps
or</DIV>
<DIV>ingredients. People found themselves trapped inside pins, unsure how
to</DIV>
<DIV>escape. Even for partially sighted people, Pinterest design, with its</DIV>
<DIV>minuscule type, was a challenge to discern.</DIV>
<DIV>"It was definitely personal for me, and me specifically. Because I've been
a</DIV>
<DIV>designer here for five years, and it's a product I really love to work
on,</DIV>
<DIV>and I want everyone to be able to use it," says Cheng. "For the group
of</DIV>
<DIV>engineers and designers sitting there, we felt like we weren't doing
enough.</DIV>
<DIV>We wanted to do more."</DIV>
<DIV>Blind people using Pinterest-the app for visual inspiration-may sound
like</DIV>
<DIV>an oxymoron. But in fact, Pinterest, like all mainstream apps, has a</DIV>
<DIV>contingent of blind users (though the company admits to not tracking
them).</DIV>
<DIV>Many use Pinterest simply to bookmark stories on the web they'd like to
read</DIV>
<DIV>later. And those who don't use the service might like to, if they
were</DIV>
<DIV>better welcomed.</DIV>
<DIV>"We asked one user, would you use Pinterest? You can't see what's on
the</DIV>
<DIV>screen!" Long recounts. "She said, 'of course I would.'" Visually
impaired</DIV>
<DIV>or not, we all want tasty recipes, better haircuts, and fashion advice.
And</DIV>
<DIV>Pinterest is loaded with billions of pins full of this stuff.</DIV>
<DIV>Over the past year, Pinterest has committed to practicing inclusive
design,</DIV>
<DIV>and making its product more accessible to everyone. With a team of a
dozen</DIV>
<DIV>designers and engineers, Cheng developed a multi-part approach to</DIV>
<DIV>redesigning Pinterest as a product that could be more accessible to</DIV>
<DIV>everyone, leading to a fully redesigned app and desktop experience
that's</DIV>
<DIV>been slowly rolling out for months.</DIV>
<DIV>The first and most obvious step was adding all of the proper code and</DIV>
<DIV>labeling to make sure that features like Voice Over could actually
read</DIV>
<DIV>every component on the screen. Along the same lines, the company added
focus</DIV>
<DIV>indicators-relatively standard outlines around buttons and menus that
are</DIV>
<DIV>active-that make Pinterest easier to use for people who can't use a mouse
or</DIV>
<DIV>trackpad.</DIV>
<DIV>This was table stakes, of course. Other aspects of the redesign would
have</DIV>
<DIV>to be more core to the user experience. In particular, the company wanted
to</DIV>
<DIV>heighten the contrast of the UI across the entire app so that it was
more</DIV>
<DIV>legible. To do so, Cheng's team developed a whole new color palette, full
of</DIV>
<DIV>bright jewel tones that could frame text and help it pop. This
multicolor</DIV>
<DIV>spectrum couldn't be further from the robin's egg blues so beloved by</DIV>
<DIV>startups.</DIV>
<DIV>"So often as designers, we have to buy into the idea that maybe an</DIV>
<DIV>accessible design isn't as pretty or beautiful," says Cheng. But he
believes</DIV>
<DIV>that with commitment, good designers can find a way to champion
aesthetics</DIV>
<DIV>and accessibility at the same time, even when it comes to high-contrast
user</DIV>
<DIV>interfaces. "For us to overhaul our color palette to accessible
colors,</DIV>
<DIV>there were definitely challenges! But in the end, we figured out the
right</DIV>
<DIV>way, and it was okay."</DIV>
<DIV>With respect to the colorblind , Pinterest has eliminated any instance
where</DIV>
<DIV>color was once used to convey action or meaning; in the new Pinterest,
it's</DIV>
<DIV>only there for increased legibility and visual flair. Meanwhile, the
company</DIV>
<DIV>introduced the option to increase the size of text across the app within
the</DIV>
<DIV>settings-focusing on size and boldness to denote information
hierarchy,</DIV>
<DIV>rather than tweaking words in various shades of gray, which can be
low</DIV>
<DIV>contrast and difficult to see.</DIV>
<DIV>Internally, Pinterest culminated its work by launching an inclusivity
pop-up</DIV>
<DIV>lab for its own employees to try to navigate the app with nothing but
a</DIV>
<DIV>keyboard, or wear items like visual-impairment goggles while trying to
read</DIV>
<DIV>the screen. "We tried to help [ourselves] understand all the
different</DIV>
<DIV>disabilities people might have when they use Pinterest," says Cheng. "How
do</DIV>
<DIV>we start any product development with that in mind from phase zero?"</DIV>
<DIV>What Cheng wants to instill is a mind-set. Two years ago, Pinterest
realized</DIV>
<DIV>it needed to consider the international market when it came to design.
And</DIV>
<DIV>now, its designers always think about decisions on a global scale.
Likewise,</DIV>
<DIV>he wants to see designers thinking inclusively from the get-go. The
company</DIV>
<DIV>has also built automated testing for accessibility into all of its
app</DIV>
<DIV>updates moving forward.</DIV>
<DIV>Inclusive design is a process, not a destination. And with that in
mind,</DIV>
<DIV>we're likely to see more and more companies go through a similar
reckoning</DIV>
<DIV>as Pinterest has in the last year. Maybe they won't get everything right
on</DIV>
<DIV>the first pass, but so long as they actively involve their edge users in
the</DIV>
<DIV>design process going forward, Pinterest will only become a more
usable</DIV>
<DIV>product for more people.</DIV>
<DIV>If that's not enough to sell you on inclusive design, it's worth
recognizing</DIV>
<DIV>that one day, we'll all be an edge case. And so inclusive design
practices</DIV>
<DIV>are often an investment in our own lives as much as they are a way of</DIV>
<DIV>helping others. Think of it as health insurance, or a social security
for</DIV>
<DIV>user experience. "Something I always think about with this work we do
is,</DIV>
<DIV>we're designing for our future self," says Cheng. "Whatever we're doing
will</DIV>
<DIV>actually benefit all of us in the future-even if you don't have low
vision</DIV>
<DIV>now."</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
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