Web Design tips: Design care for special people

Article Description: Web Design tips: Special crowd design care.

December 2010, Thomas was invited to participate in the China Interactive Design Experience Day Congress, launched a main title titled "Special Crowd Design care" speech. The speech mainly introduced in the product design, the company for special groups of some considerations. The following is a transcript of this presentation:

　　

　　

"The blind have a very high degree of reliance on QQ." ”

Before you make a formal speech, you want to see a video. Can you see what kind of user this is? Yes, it's a blind man. Perhaps many people will be surprised, how can the blind use QQ? In fact, blind people not only use QQ, they are using the Internet a lot of services to enrich their lives.
We are concerned that this group of time is actually not long, only a year's time. During this period, through a large number of observations and studies, we can say that the understanding of this group has been quite a lot. At the same time, we are also trying various methods to help them better use our products.

Imagine a scene where a blind user sits in front of a table with a keyboard, no display, and only one speaker. The screen-reading software they installed on their computers can read aloud the contents of the mouse, and blind people use them to manipulate the computer. They are very skilled in the use of computers, the reliance on QQ is also very high, a day for several hours on the internet, each time the Internet is always the first to open QQ.

I have observed a blind QQ group. To my surprise, the group of blind people are very lively, they are active in the group chat, and chat when the rolling is a large paragraph of text (which is rarely seen in the group of ordinary persons). In the group they have a very happy chat, and even sometimes typing, playing and playing will sing. The internet provides them with the happiness that is hard to give in real life.
What we want to discuss with you today is that we have some considerations about the user experience of the special people in our current design. Hope that through these designs, to bring them more warmth and help.

　　

"There seems to be an effort that actually doesn't help. ”

In reality, this is a picture of a wall that blind encountered (see left). This is a picture of two barrier-free ramps (see right-hand chart). I'm looking forward to the person who made the ramp and try to sit in a wheelchair and have a look at the slope. As you can see, we sometimes seem to be giving convenience to people with disabilities, but it doesn't actually help them.

Here's a number: 5 million-this is the number of blind people in China in the 06. We have visited a blind user, we call her sister Li, in Shenzhen opened a blind massage shop. She told us a lot about the story of QQ let us very touched. She has a normal eyesight daughter, one day daughter with her a little bit of friction, in order to with the mother and good, daughter living room of the computer opened QQ, mother said the usual did not say: "I love you." The blind mother in the bedroom computer received this sentence, very touched. This kind of QQ brings the happy example to the blind person to be numerous, in contact with her process, we have made a lot of improvement own product decision, so that our software can adapt to them.

28.98 million, this is the number of Internet users over 50 years of age in China in 2010, accounting for 6.9% of total users (data from CNNIC). I do not know whether the parents will be online, as I know, the elderly Internet is still a lot of. My parents are active in QQ, MSN and stealing food games. So many middle-aged and old people are using the Internet, what are we going to do for them?

In addition, should we also consider child users? Internet users under the age of 13,000,020, accounting for the total Netizen 31% (data from CNNIC). In product design, do we have to take into account their needs, as well as their healthy growth?

　　

"The status quo is a bit ironic."

Take a look at our situation.

The picture is somewhat ironic, this is China Employment Information Network for the disabled. I think the disabled people in China must include the visually impaired, but this site is very difficult for the visually impaired. The large number of pictures used in the website can not be read by the screen software, you can not reach the blind.

To give our own examples of products, our QQ mailbox in the revision, did not take into account the focus. The original user came in direct return can open the mail, after the revision although read the screen software read the first message, but the mouse focus is not in the mail, return to the bottom of the page. This brings a lot of trouble to the blind when using mail.

The Disorderly Tab key also creates a great confusion for the blind. A blind person uses the keyboard's tab key to switch operations on the computer. The blind expect the tag operation to be orderly, but the fact that their focus from space can be skipped first to the main menu and then back from the main menu.

And one of the most lethal verification codes. There are some CAPTCHA codes that people with normal eyesight may not be able to read, let alone the visually impaired. Verification code is not really a good experience, initially to solve the Internet security problems arise. The company uses the authentication code, is in order to prevent the user QQ number to be stolen, but this has brought the very big obstacle to the visually impaired person.

The font size of the text, the color is also a problem. This is a page before the Tencent Network revision. Now it seems that the font is relatively small, the word spacing is also dense, and the font color is relatively shallow. Some designers out of aesthetic considerations, for the text and background do not want to have too much contrast, but when we pursue this sense of harmony, the word recognition degree is reduced. Now for the text, my requirements for the designer is to be as white as possible black words.

The main problem with Qgame is navigation. Dense navigation to users, especially middle-aged and elderly users, in the search for the game brought a lot of trouble.

　　

"The things we do."

We have done quite a lot of work in the investigation of the blind. The computer is their other pair of eyes, they are eager to communicate, look forward to attention, keen to share, super patience and endurance, good memory, exploration and strong. Although they encountered many difficulties in the process of using the software, they persisted in using it with great patience. We have improved a lot of design details on the basis of our understanding of them.

For example, tab, we've sorted out the various action buttons and grouped them. The blind in QQ when the tab operation will first select the group, and then choose the button.

We have just mentioned the problem of verification code. In this regard, we set up a white list, the visually impaired apply to join the "white list", in the use of QQ process will no longer have to fill in the requirements of the verification code. The white list of users, from 2000 to 40,000, now the "white list" is continuing to update.

We have also spent a lot of time studying the internet situation of the elderly. The final conclusion is that they need visual help in the design of the elders, simple functional design, refreshing interface design, large and clear fonts, buttons, click-oriented operations, intelligent Input Method, handwriting input, and multi-channel design with complementary voice and vision.

I remember, when I taught my father to use a computer, taught him the left mouse button to teach for a long time, so far he will be very nervous double click on the left. Every time I have to ask, it is hard. Then we in the QQ single double-click operation to do an improvement, QQ Tray Area "extract message" icon, long ago is a double click extraction, now changed to click Extract.

We also do the QQ audio and video of the elderly version of skin, using the elderly feel more comfortable green, larger fonts and fewer operation buttons.

We also made a concise version of the QQ space. In the user's choice of concise version of the model, we provide users with the most simple and straightforward reading experience.

www.qq.com use large fonts. The year before this revision, this revision lasted for one years. For the portal, any small change will have a great impact on the user's browsing, so we are very cautious when doing the revision. In this revision, we put the font from 12th to 14th and 13th, when we finished this revision, on-line after the user a piece. We found that before the revision of the user to see all portals, do not feel small, because all the words of the portal is very small, but once he read the qq.com, and then back to other sites, he will feel "how can the word so small?" "When users have a comfortable experience, it's hard to go back to uncomfortable experiences," he said.

Similarly, the QQ game can also enlarge the choice of font, the left font size can be adjusted.

Tencent Network children's channel research. We have always thought that all humans interact in the way we envision, but we find that children are not. For example, they don't look at the navigation. As they entered a colorful page, they went straight to the most fancy place. So we're going to do research on things like this and do the design that suits them.

Autistic child Care action. This is what we do with the public welfare of the Central and Tencent. The total number of autistic children in China is more than 1.5 million. This group of children has an exchange of cognitive impairment and a tendency to be closed, before a movie called "Ocean Heaven" is to focus on this segment of the population. We found that many things could not be done before, but now there is a good device--ipad. My eight-month-old daughter, with the ipad, can play a vegetable-cutting game. The ipad is a very good device for bringing people and machines together, and we use the ipad as a medium in the hope of developing an app that will guide autistic children from closure to openness. Our team with the United States visited a number of psychologists and autistic children to learn about their needs, as well as the child psychologists ' observations and perceptions of autistic children and the ways they can think of them. Through our app, guide them to communicate with the machine, and then guide them to communicate with others.

Fair Trade design action. In today's trade, more income is allocated to the middle channel. Many people who actually produce these things do not get the benefit. We want to do this thing not expect to change the big environment, we want to find some pilot, such as a little poor, they have some cultural heritage, such as the culture of tie-dyeing crafts. We will help them to raise the value of these handicrafts and then sell them to those who need them, and return most of the benefits to the producers. We want to do a lot of this design, build the middle of the bridge.

　　

"Barrier-free design, let's work together"

1999, WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) 1.0.
2001, the United States 508 Act.
The special Education Needs and Disability Act and the barrier-free Information Technology Ordinance, United Kingdom and Germany, 2002.
2008, WCAG2.0.
2008, China "information accessibility-physical skills difference crowd-web design accessibility technology requirements."

We can see that there are already many laws on barrier-free abroad. In 08, we also promulgated the relevant norms in China. But the national more than 3 million site inside, really conforms to these specifications of the website, almost no.

For care design, we continue to explore and find ways to make our software more suitable for the use of special people. These are some of our current discoveries. Time relationship is not much to say.

"In the net, I have two suns; in reality, I have no light sense; virtual, I can be insolent; in reality, I have been buried!" "This is a signature file for a blind user. This blind user is only 20 years old, a young lad, and he makes us feel that we are doing something very meaningful.

There are quite a number of colleagues here, as well as in the future to do the user experience design students, I would like to appeal, let us work together! Thank you.