Improving readability in design

Welcome to another fun-filled email about user experience!? This week, I'll be diving into why incorporating intuitive icons and straightforward language is crucial in product or web design, particularly when catering to non-English speaking users.

Let's get into it,

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In today's email:

• User insights reveal strategies for effortless readability
• How to attract top UX talent? ?
• Client spotlight on a new product changing the mechanic's workshop
• How to give a voice to your personas with Ai
• Maximizing Product Value: Webinar on value stacking? ??

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All the best, Dan

How to improve readability and design?

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We have just wrapped up some user testing for our client UNSW to help improve and validate a new area of their website. As always, every time I do one-on-one user testing, I come away with some new insights and learnings. The one that stood out this time was speaking with non-English-first-language users and the way they navigated the experience, approached the information differently and saw things.

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So, I will talk about scan reading, clear images, and iconography. Not only do we need to understand people’s reading patterns and easy-to-read text, but we also need to consider that a non-English speaker might not read large chunks of text at all. We know that common reading patterns take an F shape and are driven by scan reading. You can see the common ways of scan reading below.

So, how can we design in a way that caters to all users? Let’s look at some tips for the copy. When we look at a product or web page in its entirety, I like to do what I call the squint test. If you squint your eyes, what do you see? This technique makes large blocks of text go out of focus.

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In the image below, I've taken a text-heavy page from a website. When you squint, you can’t understand any of the content; there is lots of text and expandable headings. But what if we could transform this into a more user-friendly page? Let's explore how we can improve it.

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Icons are amazing ways to present information clearly. For each heading here, we could add a contextual icon, making it easier to scan and read and giving us a clue about the heading’s meaning. We can also use bullets or other text callouts to chunk the information better.

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By incorporating these design elements, we can make the page much easier to scan, read, and understand. However, these are often overlooked in design. So, I urge you to use the squint test next time you review a product or web page. It's a simple yet effective way to ensure your design is user-friendly.

How To Attract Top UX Talent For Your Team

Attracting top-tier UX talent can be challenging; our latest article provides a guide to help you draw in the finest designers for your team. Read how

Client Spotlight

We have been working with Auxo for over a year, supporting their team with UX strategy and product design, and are delighted to announce that they launched a few weeks ago! View website

The best from the web

A compilation of top-notch UX insights and advice from around the internet

Bring your personas to life with an AI voice?

Add voices to your copy using Eleven Labs to make user personas feel more real. They have over 32 languages! Check them out

Focus with product value stacking

Check out this webinar from Product Pad. They explore Value Stacking and how it can help you to decide what opportunities to focus on next to achieve your overall goal. Watch now

As always, if I can be of service, feel free to grab some time with me.If you have a friend who might enjoy my content, then please share this with them!