 Good afternoon everybody. Thanks for being here to the latest installation of Ellis and tabs self help summer series. Today's webinar is all about user centered designs and self help websites and we're very, very excited to have Ashley trendy here with us from the graphic advocacy project. She is going to talk about all sorts of things related to design questions and weapon in webinars in websites. So, and if you have already seen Ellis and taps, the excellent materials on Ellis and tap from gap and map related to ux. So this will build upon those materials and focus in on self help websites. So I'm going to turn it over to Ashley. Thanks Ashley. Thank you Angela for the introduction. And I will go ahead and share my screen and go into present mode. So, everyone see the slides. And everyone to mute yourselves. During Ashley's presentation, I'm sure she will take questions if you have a question you can raise your hand or you can put it in the chat will also have time at the end for questions. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, if Angela if I could ask for your help if there are any questions that come in through the chat but I will also keep an eye so please feel free to share there and then we definitely have some time at the end for more of a discussion and a q amp a. So, yeah, also feel free to hold hold questions for them. As Angela mentioned, we're going to chat about user centered design today and then specifically design in the context of you know developing self help websites. I'll just do a quick intro. As Angela mentioned my name is Ashley. I'm a user research advisor with the graphic advocacy project and have also been you know a user researcher and designer. I'm one of the founders of just fix NYC and have, you know, sort of been in the legal design space. And so really excited about, you know, all the work that you're doing and the intentionality to bring design into this space and and to, you know, the resources that you are creating for clients and folks that you're working with. So what we're going to cover today is, you know, at a high level sort of the user centered design process and some of the principles that govern that we're going to spend the bulk of the time chatting about considerations and design patterns of self help websites. I'll share a few resources and then as I mentioned we can have some time at the end for you know discussion and q amp a. I've seen gap, you know present before this will hopefully be very familiar to you but we just like to, you know, kind of set the stage orient us also we're you know sort of coming in with the same mindset. You know what do we mean when we talk about user informed or user centered design and why is it important. What this really means is, you know, shifting from potentially a way of creating resources, where, you know, we're developing things with no user input right like we are experts we have knowledge and we are, you know, creating resources for our users to use that are coming from our perspective, or what we think they might need. And so what user informed design and user centered design is actually shifting that model to co creating or you know bringing users into the design process so that their voices are heard so that we better understand their needs and can design solutions and resources to match their needs and goals. Human centered design, you know can look very different. There is sort of a core process that that governs that that we'll look at in a moment but the principles that you know are really the drivers behind human centered design is that you know first and foremost we're focusing on the people that are directly affected by the issues in the spaces that we're working on or we're designing for. And all of the people associated with that process so while we may be focusing on you know clients or individuals today you know seeking legal resources in a self help context. Are there other folks that are you know involved in that process like partner organizations or you know others who may who may touch a part of their experience as they you know go through this process. Finding the right problem so this is really you know an opportunity for us to dig in and understand the root causes and issues and not just the symptoms of a problem so while something. You know on the surface may seem you know that it's not discoverable or difficult to navigate. This is a place in a space to really dig in and say you know is there something else here. That we're missing or is you know what what is really the core of the issue and how can we design to that. The third is that everything is part of a system right we are all interconnected. You know, a product or a tool or resource that exists in isolation doesn't actually exist in isolation right so just because we are maybe focused on the design of a specific thing that design lives in part of a broader ecosystem and so understanding how you know users are connected to that ecosystem how we are connected and how the tools we're creating are connected to a broader broader ecosystem is a important thing to keep in mind. There's a great video that's linked here if you're interested will share the slides after that you know just kind of reiterates these core principles. When we talk about user center user user experience design excuse me. I just want to highlight, you know that when we talk about user experience we're not just talking about the design of a thing right and we like to use the terminology of of a thing because it's you know more ambiguous than a website or an app or a form, or something that you may design, because it includes the entire design of that user experience which may include, you know, the experience before even discovering that, you know, thing. And then what happens after you know you engage with that thing right your experience continues so we're really looking more holistically, and not just at the, you know, sort of designs of a particular thing but the broader experience that surrounds it. And so user research is a great way to you know understand that broader experience and you know to dig in and get feedback on ideas to validate that we're really designing the best UX so the best thing but the best you know holistic experience. And also you know sort of built into the UX design process is the opportunity to do continuous learning and continuous discovery. And so you know if you design something that doesn't mean that you know it has to be static and live that way in perpetuity right there are opportunities to continue learning about how folks are using your resource, and how to make continuous improvements to ensure that it's you know meeting their needs, you know perhaps as you know the context surrounds it changes. So, you know why is this important so we're you know talking about this today. Because it is a really important lens to I think especially approach legal design from and so, you know, taking that intentional time to understand who your users are and our users are right understanding their behaviors, pain points needs and motivations outside of the broader, you know, specific need right you know maybe the legal situation that they're in their experiences so much more nuanced than that and really taking the time to understand the drivers or the way that they understand you know what what their experience is user user centered design can be conducted through various methods there's a lot of different parts of this process and so depending on where you are in the stage of your project in your project goals you can kind of jump in at various parts of the process so it's it's important to know you know and reflect on where you are and how you can best leverage this process to meet you know your current needs. As I mentioned before, it's an opportunity for us to uncover the root cause of the problems and ideate on new opportunities for improvement so you know where we might bring a specific lens or a specific approach to solving a problem, this is an opportunity to you know bring in more voices and think differently about the solutions that we're creating and designing. It ensures that we're building the right thing and building the thing right so you know built into the UX design process or many touch points to get feedback to iterate to, you know, sort of bring in that you know continuous improvement mindset. So that we're not necessarily striving towards that you know that thing that's going to live over there in perpetuity, but that iteration is sort of a natural part of the process and something that we can bring into our practice and an ongoing basis. We like to highlight, you know that you're building with and not only for your users and you know partners and others who you might pull into this process with you, which is wonderful and collaborative. At the end of the day it's important because it ensures that you know the tools that we're creating or the things that we're creating are easy to use and useful to those who are using it. So, we like to just reiterate that putting people at the center of the design process is the best chance to get adoption, make an impact and achieve success. At a very high level this is, you know, sort of the the UX design process. Some of you may have seen this we, we often show this particular framework for visualizing the UX design process so this is a version of the double diamond framework. And what you'll see as you start on the left is, you know, beginning with a general problem statement right and this might be, you know, where you're coming in there's there's an opportunity to improve something or you've you know honed in on on a pain point or something that you want to explore. So we come in with you know sort of a general assumption that you know something could be improved. And we can leverage this process to dig in more there and see, you know, with the goal of getting to specific solutions that address that through the double diamond And so the first diamond you'll see is, you know, research and pulling out insights from the research that are based on user need, and there's, you know, lots of arrows in this diagram to show that you know this can, you know, you can circle back if you don't get the insights you need that you know as you learn things you may want to double back and gather more information it is again can be very iterative. So the double diamond brings us into the ideation space where we can, you know, we've honed in on specific problems through our research and insights development. And now we can use those insights and the problem that we've defined to start thinking about solutions. And then in the second half of the second double diamond, or the second diamond right is actually bringing those ideas to life. So we'll be, you know, doing more research to test some of those prototypes before we even develop them as designs to get early feedback from our users. So, I, you know, I think this is a really great way to kind of look at the process to see the flexibility to jump in at different spaces. But the importance of starting with research and gathering insights is that when we do jump into the ideation phase, we are designing solutions and striving towards creating things or resources, you know, with those user insights in mind. Gap, the graphic advocacy project has also, you know, created our own visual of this. So this is Hallie, the president of gap created this visual which is just another way to look at the design process. That's a little more personalized for gap so similar process shown a little bit differently but you know again you see those arrows, you know, sort of throughout this process where we can you know identify a problem. You know work to understand the problem, learn and speaking with users or you know the community, create solutions, get feedback on those solutions, iterate on the designs and you know of course then share those out and continue to reflect and improve. And as Angela mentioned at the beginning I just also want to highlight that, you know, the grant that that we worked on through TIG has been documented in this playbook essentially called build a better blank strategies for user informed legal design. And so a lot of what I'm going to share today is, you know, outlined in in this PDF form it's also available in a more interactive way on the LS and tap website we have some clips from the courses that we taught, we link to templates and other resources and if you're, if you're interested in, you know, digging more into the UX design process as a whole. That's definitely a place and a space to dig into more there and see the documentation that we have from the class. So in addition to you know the UX design process that we highlight there what we're going to chat about for the next, you know, bit of time in the core of this webinar is looking at some of the activities or the recommendations that came out of the UX audits that we did so we actually looked at 14 self help websites. And so, you know what we're going to share today is is a bit of that research. This will be linked, it will be linked on LS and tap to and maybe Angela we can drop in a link as well at the end to to this resource as well. So before jumping in and kind of you know thinking about the self help websites and and some of the considerations there let's just take a moment to like, you know, orient around imagining our users goals and motivations so we're going to try to put ourselves in their shoes for the sake of you know approaching this content with a more empathetic lens. And you know trying to understand for folks who are accessing self help websites right what what are the ways that they might be coming in what are the situations that they might be in where they are seeking out this kind of resource or this kind of information. So this is certainly not an exhaustive list, but you know a few things again just to create some alignment and focus for us as we move into the next phase of the workshop. Some potential entry points for folks coming you know to to access self help tools. Oh great thank you Angela. Maybe they are coming in, you know with an exploratory mindset right I'm in a particular legal situation and I need to find out what I want to do so, looking more broadly together, you know information about a process or you know a specific type of legal information. Maybe they're coming to find something in particular right they you know are at a later stage of the process and they've been asked by an advocate, you know to find a particular form or complete a particular activity and so they're coming to, you know, look for something very specific like a resource or a document. It's more abstract than that right maybe they, you know are starting to identify that they're in a legal situation or a legal context but they're not quite sure what they're looking for and they are, you know looking for some information to try to understand how they even might identify or explain the type of situation that they're in maybe they were referred, you know by a friend or a co worker to, you know, learn a little bit more about, you know, how to identify what issues they might be or maybe you know they're just really trying to get in touch with someone right they're trying to they're looking for a phone number or they're looking for you know some sort of form to get in touch. You know just wanting to connect with someone directly so again this isn't an exhaustive list of these motivations or goals but a few just to orient us as we you know shift into the next section and look at some common design patterns that are leveraged for self help sites to meet these needs and these motivations of potential users. So, I wanted to just kind of show a quick screen grab of, you know how how we created some of this information so as I mentioned we did user experience audits of 14 different online resources and what we did was, you know kind of take all of the recommendations that we had across the entire set and do some insights mapping which is a method for synthesizing research that you can find more about on the Ellis and top website. So what we did is we sort of clustered the different takeaways that we had from our individual audits to form some broader themes and patterns that we were seeing across the set. And, and to create some you know specific recommendations for you know sort of the areas where we saw you know the most opportunity to make improvements. So, these are some of the main areas that that we uncovered from those audits, and we're going to focus in on a few of these today. So information architecture and navigation forms and online intake content development communication strategies visual design accessibility design of multiple platforms and types designed for different devices and continuous feedback opportunities. For the purpose of today I'm not going to be able to dig into all of these but we will cover a few of these and then there are a list of the key findings and the recommendations associated with each of these in the build. The build a better blank resource that Angela just shared. So the first thing is information architecture and navigation information architecture for those who aren't familiar is is really the like site map or the structure of your website right it's the. It's the collection of all the pages in your website and how they're organized, and then therefore how you point people to those pages within the experience that's the navigation piece. So, as we're designing information architecture for self help websites what we want to keep in mind, and maybe even user tests right or get feedback on is is understanding how do people find information. Are they using search are they you know scrolling or clicking around right how are they actually looking for information. So the you know organizing the website how are things categorized what is the sort of information hierarchy, or categorization that we're bringing to the design of the site is the layout of each of the individual pages, you know, intuitive to find information. And does it support how your users, your users actions or goals right the things you know they might, they might come here for so just questions to keep in mind, as we're thinking about the information architecture. One of the recommendations that we had from the audits for designing and information architecture or navigation are the following so ensuring that your menus your drop down menus and high level navigation match your information architecture so that every page on your website is accessible. So ensuring that good visibility will promote find ability for your for your users and allow them to you know navigate easily and quickly to you know what what it is they're looking for. Direct your users to information within the website and make it clear with icons and consistent language so if you're pointing someone to a particular page about you know a legal topic. On that page they should see you know consistent language on that page to reiterate that they've landed in the right place. So as you are creating those navigation touch points, you know use icons for continuity use consistent language for continuity so that as your users are sort of navigating through that information architecture. There are those touch points to confirm that they're being brought to where you know they intended to go. That's a great, you know option if it's available to you, you know a lot of people just default to use search and so if you have the option to use semantic search or you know make your search a little more robust maybe tag them. Your search terms by you know content types or media types that can help to create some categorization for her folks who are leveraging search to find information as a navigation option. You know hierarchy by defining high level categories and subcategories. So I know this can be particularly challenging when it comes to defining, you know, legal topics and how are you organizing different legal topics how are you nesting them, whether or you know pairing them with you know related examples so flushing that out you know before you build the website having that really clearly defined hierarchy and categorization can be really helpful for when you actually start implementing resources in your site because you'll know that they're following that that consistent pattern and that model. A really important thing maybe a simple thing is providing navigation breadcrumbs and what are called breadcrumbs. Those are ways that users can return either to the main page or the page that they were on before. Because this can really help promote exploration right people can kind of dig in deeper but know that they can you know jump back to the page they were on before. They can minimize user error, or, you know, folks feeling like they're maybe getting lost or they navigated to a page and they don't know how to get back so breadcrumbs, which are those you often see them at the top left, where you can have sort of a paginated breadcrumb, or just a way to click back to the previous page can be really helpful for users. And finally give users options to access information in a way that works best for them, you know potentially reorganizing layouts to optimize user choice. I do have a couple examples visual examples to dig into this more. And so we'll look at an example of how you might do that in just a moment. So help users navigate to similar pages by linking to sort of a main starting point and then related pages. It's also really important to, you know, progressively reveal categories at a step to help users choose where to go next we'll we'll dig into that a little more with some of the content development recommendations but you know instead of sort of going every option can you start with that high level main category and then as they click into that reveal some of the subcategories just to help with with cognitive processing. Add links to related pages and forms so if there are, you know, forms that might be related to an information page or perhaps a related topic right, you know having a section at the bottom where you can just link to some of those pages would be a really helpful way, you know, to help users navigate they might see oh actually you know this is what I'm looking for and it's really easy for them to to jump just to a new section instead of starting a search over again or going back to you know the top of the information architecture and you know working their way into some categories as well so there's, you know, sort of ways to point users across the experience. And finally again something that will dig into a little more in content development but standardized locations for quick links for scan ability so if you start to introduce patterns across the website of where you might find a particular type of content like a quick link or a related page or form users will learn that as they navigate through the site and they'll go and seek that out. You know, as they as they, you know, learn the layout and the organization and so that's another great way to help users navigate to to other information across the site. So I wanted to highlight a few examples of self help websites and so this is the Kentucky justice. website, and I wanted to highlight here that they do a really great thing in their sort of main menu navigation which I've highlighted here is that they have this option for all topics. And they break it out into you know the different legal categories as well and you know it's lovely they have a corresponding icon associated with that that appears on the subsequent pages for that continuity. But again thinking about you know different types of users who may be coming in you know there might be that user who you know knows exactly you know that they have a housing issue and they want to navigate quickly to housing content. So it also accommodates you know the the users who you know may just want to browse a list of topics and kind of understand a bit more, you know, what types of resources this website provides, and then maybe choose, you know the best resource for them so I really love how they have in their main navigation, this sort of library page of all the topics, and then the breakouts clearly visible again to you know sort of serve both of those potential user needs. A similar thing on the Indiana legal help website is a list of the self help forms right so for those users that maybe know exactly where they need to go. So that that you know motivation of I'm looking for a particular form or I know I'm coming to get this particular thing. You know they might be able to access this by going through you know more of that library model of self help forms versus you know someone who might just be more exploring right wanting to understand the resources that are available for someone in a family, family law or a housing, you know context and so they can dig in and, and I also, you know, really like how the sort of sub categories are listed here right they've defined a high level category that encompasses some sub categories and then made that visible here. So it's not overwhelming content they've just used the, the high level category and the sub categories to give a little more context to help users choose, you know which, which pathway to continue down which sort of navigation to pursue. I also wanted to call out that you know a lot of the resources that we looked at are also linking, you know across pages where maybe you're linking to a law help inner a law help interactive site or you're linking to you know another resource or you know a sister resource and so we saw a lot of you know navigation across websites and other tools. And so it's really important to make sure that a that navigation is available right and to make that visible. Wherever possible to create that consistent look and feel across websites and tools so that users know they're in the right place. You know, you might not have a lot of flexibility with a certain design if you're leveraging, you know a third party tool but you know is your logo available. You know incorporate the colors, your brand colors of your organization or other even language right to reiterate to users that you know they've landed in the right place that continuity as users navigate across resources can be very important and powerful. So yeah icons. Oh specifically for pointing people to outside resources. It is a best practice to use an external link icon and some messaging to just reiterate that they're going to be leaving your website right they're going to actually be pointed out to you know an outside resource so that they understand the behavior that's about to happen. So just some best practices to keep in mind when you're thinking not just about you know creating navigation within your own website, but you know connecting multiple resources and tools if that you know is is applicable for your context. So I'm going to jump to the next section forms and online intake this is another very common pattern that we've seen you know specifically with self help websites. And so you know again some questions to keep in mind from your user perspective, you know what is the order and the cadence of the questions that you're asking. Are you asking for information that you need, and especially are you explaining why you need this information. So I think that's really important to users that you know you are providing clarity around why you know the intake questions or the form questions are being asked and and you know why that information is important what does that information allow you to do. Things like that can really you know build trust with your users. And, and as you build that trust you can build towards more difficult questions right or maybe more personal questions that you need in order to provide the best service. But you know doing that intentionally and kind of thinking about the order and the cadence of questions so that you can get progressively to the more difficult questions and build that trust along the way. Another important thing to think about is, you know, are you explaining what happens right and what will happen if they fill out the form so for this user that you know is hoping to get in touch with someone you know wants to speak with someone. What are the next steps, when might they expect to hear from someone and how might they be contacted. This is all really important information that you know can can alleviate a lot of anxiety for users can just help them be more informed about the process and all things that you can build into your design of forms and online intake. So a few more, you know, recommendations and best practices for for building forms is to label the steps to accurately represent the order. Think about, you know, to sort of alleviate potentially having many, many, many steps, you know, think about nested sections and steps. It's really important to make sure that you're matching labels for consistency so users are using those cues right if you label a section. Make sure that section is the same section that you know might appear in a sidebar navigation or a progress indicator right so that they have they can use labels they can use section titles as ways to orient and make sure they know they're on the right track those are types of cues that that can really alleviate, you know, again the anxiety and the stress of a potential experience. And displaying error messaging with form fields allows for you know that quick error resolution. You know it's maybe they've you know entered something in a format that's not acceptable or they've missed a step having those, you know visual cues to, you know, in line with the form. Which, you know, which item or activity is is the thing that is causing that error will help them sort of mitigate and rectify on that in a timely manner. There are many indicators, you know around visibility of progress, you may have seen this as you know a progress bar or a loading icon anything like that that you can build into your design to offer your users is great just to reiterate that they're still on the right track to give them a sense of that orientation and you know where they are in the overall process. Similar content types and prioritizing them by relevance so this you know kind of connects back to sections and steps, thinking about that order of operations right the order in which you're asking questions. And then similar to the navigation in in a different way here for forums and online intake is providing clear next and back options, as well as breadcrumbs again just to support movement through through the forms and avoiding user error, knowing that someone has, you know, needs to go back and fix something they can navigate back to a previous section so, again building in those navigation touch points to give users flexibility as they engage with these resources. And I wanted to share, you know, a quick screenshot of the Florida online intake and using the server for their online forms but you know having a, you know this clear sort of sidebar that shows them the steps and the different ways of having you know continue and back I also like that they've you know right from the get go are making language options very available so that users can continue on in their preferred language. So I want to call out that, you know, ideally if this is the introduction, we would see introduction here again rights, as we look at these two to say, am I in the right place, am I in this section. So maybe that would be sort of like a section header that could say introduction and then you know this particular step of the introduction space. And this is definitely I think a core and key. You know important topic for self help websites and especially for this particular context because users are engaging with information to answer any number of questions or find any number of resources right and this is you know they're they're self guided and they're on their own so it's really critical as you're creating content for this particular context to think about a few different things. So the first is you know understanding the types of information users are looking for and user research again can be a great way to really hone in on this and understand information types, you know preferences for digesting information so that you can design to that. So understanding, you know how do they know what they need to do. Are they, you know do they need to take steps do they need to access forms, you know look at how to videos other important information. So this is our opportunity to really think again from that user perspective like what are they coming here to do, what do they need to find and how do we match that with the resources that we have for them how do we design the content in a way that's you know intuitive and suggestive. So a few recommendations here. So use plain, plain and consistent language I think this is maybe you know, a given for for many of you but just being mindful of how and when you're using legally isn't legal jargon. So just being empathetic and and you know letting that human voice speak out can be so reassuring for users right as they navigate this really complex content so you know try wherever possible to use plain language to use consistent language so that they can learn the language that they can you know process and understand as they're engaging with these resources. You know, a lot of content on a screen can be very overwhelming and perhaps right they just need to ingest, you know that much content, but there are design patterns that, you know can support the intentionality around how users are presented with that information so this concept of progressive disclosure which you know can reveal more content, and it supports cognitive processing that feeling of, you know, whoa I just got hit with this wall of information so you may have seen this in designs in the forms of you know accordions or, you know, clicking on on a link that says show more that reveals more information. I wanted to share a lovely example from the Georgia legal aid website, which is this sort of tabs. So, you know they are, you know, kind of clicking through, they have, you know, tips, they have more information and videos so I just really love how this content is is, you know, chunked out. And here you can see they've also leveraged the accordion design pattern right so starting with sort of a high level question that a user might have. What should I know and what can I do and then the ability to you know whichever is most relevant for them you know kind of click and learn more. I wanted to call out another thing here which is a very important thing for content development, and potentially something that can be sort of built in to, to your resources but having a date right that reiterates the last time the content was updated even if you're just adding a new resource or you've updated a form. So this is an indicator to your users that you know this content is, you know, actively being updated right this is the most up to date it gives a lot of reassurance to your users but that they're looking at content and information and accessing resources that are you know relevant to their situation so I'd like to highlight that as well. Really, really important thing I think for for your for yourselves as you're creating content because you know it's it's no small feat to create a self help website rate that's so rich and robust with information so standardizing content formats and making sure and creating your own patterns across the site your own modules and replicable replicable blocks can be a really great way to create that consistency and for your users they'll sort of attenuate and know, you know, oh this block, you know in this block I can find this particular thing so so leveraging that as a pattern across the site. So with content right I'm creating that hierarchy by defining high level and and subcategories, like we looked at in the information architecture as well you can actually do that, you know, in the copy as well. I think similar content types together so that you know if you have a series of related questions or related resources right those can be sort of paired together and then prioritized by relevance again you know based on what is the user here to learn what are the things that they need to know and thinking of that narrative and that presentation. So this is something that we, you know, gave recommendations to many of the groups so we did the audits with was you know think about developing templates right and those reusable content blocks. If you have you know a particular page for every self help, you know every type of self help resource writer potential legal topic, don't reinvent the wheel every time right. So you can help that template so that you know that you're creating to a pattern something that you can reuse a place to bring in the resources a place to bring in the forms. It will help your own process and your own development as you scale and add you know potentially new topics or items to your website. And for the user end right it teaches them that replicability right they start to see those patterns they start to understand how to find information and navigate across the site. So I just wanted to share another example of of a lovely resource I really love this how they've highlighted. You know what what we can help you with right so you know for a particular topic. They're making very clear you know here are the items that that we can support. As well as highlighting you know here's either how to get in touch or or to get started with that online application and that appears consistently on every page. So you know again fleshing out that template creating that template and source. I'm aware of time I definitely want to get to two questions and answers and see some amazing. Yes, lovely lovely website and one of these were all ones that we did for the audit so they will be linked so that you can dig into them in the slides and actually go and look at the examples that we're linking to. So visual design so I'm going to scan through this one pretty quickly but I think a lot of these things will feel somewhat familiar, maybe, but simplicity can go a long way for readability I know there's often, you know a desire to design, you know, interesting or unique, but really you know when the focus for self help websites is you know getting people to the right content helping them find what they're looking for simplicity can really go a long way, especially for readability and again that like content ingestion. My layouts are really great and also best for responsive design so if you have you know a website that you know scales to a specific device if the user is looking at it on a mobile device right it will scale scale responsibly and so designing with that in mind. Single column layouts are you know really lend themselves well to that responsive design. There's a white space between elements and just aligning things. So you know in web design there are a lot of different grids that you can use and again this is just to bring some structure to the underlying foundation of the content. And don't be afraid to use that white space it's okay for things to breathe right it just it's a breath for the user as they're you know ingesting and looking at a lot of this information. And it can also just kind of leave the feeling of a clean and modern feel. Additionally icons that have a similar look and feel are good for creating visual consistency so if you are looking for icons. You know, try to find ones that you know look like they're of the same icon pack or the same set right are they outline focused are they filled in little things like that can can really go a long way for making the visual design of the site have that you know consistency. Using colors that are standardized and compliant. So for accessibility purposes. And we've linked to a bunch of accessibility resources in our in the guide that Angela shared earlier. So the user just ways for users to familiarize themselves with elements as they're navigating through the site. And and small things like using an icon and and you know the blue underlying link to you know, indicate that you're linking, you know to another page things like that. Those are things that users will learn as they navigate through the site so make sure you're being consistent with with that visual language. Using color to indicate meaning right so you know if there is a particular you know there's a form section right maybe every form section is you know a different. You know has a applied color to it right so that as a user, you know scans the information and they see this color repeated. Right they understand and come to know that you know this indicates forms if I see this color you know I might be looking at a form or an icon in the same way. I'm going to skip ahead so just for the sake of time so as I mentioned, you know I didn't get to cover all of the findings and the recommendations that are outlined in this report. So definitely check out the report for the you know the complete recommendations around you know communication accessibility designed for multiple platforms getting continuous feedback. There is you know so much great information already in here so this was sort of like a very high level. You know things to look out for as you're designing self help websites, and you know we'll share the slides as well so you can take a look at some of the websites that you know we had the chance to do the audits on. There's some great resources out there that are great to look to for inspiration. I'm going to give you parting thoughts before I open it up for for discussion so to go back to that broader you know UX design lens right as we're focusing on you know the thing right the self help website. Don't forget to consider you know how our users even discovering or finding the self help resource right zoom out of their holistic experience and think about how how it is even you know becoming a resource for them. How are you, you know, getting your site out there right, you know how are you sharing your resources are you doing outreach are you working with partnerships. You know are you, you know leveraging SEO for for search, you know how are you getting this into the hands of those that that really need this and so I think there'll be an opportunity in the next segment of the webinar summer series to dig into this a little more. Another important thing is also just you know, meeting people where they're at, especially when it comes to, you know the language that they're using to search for resources is right they might not, you know call something again with that legal jargon right the way that you're framing information the way that you're inviting them to to understand the categories and the subcategories. Think about that as as you know people are seeking these resources that they may not have the exact language that matches your site and so how, how can you design to that how can you, you know make those connections so that that more people can find you. And as always, you know just another plug to bring in user research to get continuous feedback so that you can have that consistent touch point to know how to continue to improve your resources. So, Angela already shared the links for for this. We also have a lot of templates for different parts of the UX design process. So these are all linked in the slides as well. In the past we've highlighted a few other tools that you can use. You know there's different tools for online intake that I've linked to here for surveys for gathering user feedback that you can sort of embed on your websites. So I just want to get to the part where we can chat with 10 minutes left and I'm sorry I talked for much longer than I wanted to. So are there any questions, questions thoughts from the group and thank you all also so much for your time. No worries. Your presentation was was wonderful and informative so I'm sure no one minded. You're talking so much. I didn't see anything in the chat besides some excitement about seeing one's website and the links that I put in so if people have questions please raise your hand. If you want to talk or unmute yourself I guess you can do that. Danielle. Hi. Hey, I was just wondering. One of the biggest challenges we've had with you know getting participation for usability testing is you know getting people to show up to the scheduled zoom meetings that we make in advance and we do offer incentives but you know I get people signed up and then just people do show up and I'm just wondering if you have like any tips on like best practices for like, like when do you follow up like or how often or like how soon in advance, should you be scheduling these things to kind of get people to show up. I'm just real we've been really struggling with that. I appreciate that question I think you know it is definitely something that's challenging it sounds like you, you know are doing the right things by, you know, following up. I think you know the more communication you can send right like, you know a reminder, you don't have to fix, you know anything that that can, you know, minimize the tent, you know the, the barrier to, you know, accessing or just showing up maybe offering you know like a reschedule, you know so that if they do have to cancel it's it's clear that you can reschedule that we do actually have I believe it's on LSN tap we did a webinar about remote usability testing where we dug into, you know, a lot of different tactics for you know recruiting. But, yeah I think you know it sounds like if you're you know being really communicative I mean maybe expand the you know the pool of participants schedule more people knowing that you know some may drop off and you know if, if it's available I think, you know maybe it's something to connect with people, you know, in real life right like going back out and finding people in spaces, physical spaces is maybe available to us again. I think there are also other ways to maybe think about, you know, surveys or asynchronous usability testing it's not ideal but right like if you happen to miss someone, you know who is coming for for it, you know a sort of live usability in a way that you could simulate that and maybe send them a survey there's a great tool called maze, which is linked in the deck. But you can kind of pair a design and a survey side by side so it's actually a great way to do sort of an asynchronous usability test of sorts, and you know, you know, the questions in your usability test are paired side by side with the designs and so you know as an alternative that might be you know another way to think about collecting that feedback asynchronously. I guess the last is maybe just trying to catch people you know at the end of a, you know, of a conversation or you know when you already have them on the phone see if they have an extra you know five to 10 minutes to take a look at something and maybe you're going to get things in smaller bite sized chunks then you know a full sort of usability test but that could be another way to think about gathering that information. Great, thank you. Any other question. There's also a question in the chat. This is an example of a legal information site, as opposed to like a specific app, or function of a site that was developed as a result of the human centered design process that you discussed initially. There definitely are. And I might, I might not be able to like find that right now but is that something that I can follow up. Can you share your email with me and I can, or I don't know if there's a way to post that on Ellis and tap but I can include examples in the slides I'd be happy to do that, just would love to just take a little a few more minutes to think about that and find some relevant examples, because I know they're out there. It would be great and you may want to post them in general because I think other people would likely be interested as well as sometimes I'm having a hard time understanding the distinction between the extensive user testing that a lot of us are doing already and and that human centered design. I think that, you know, linguistically they are, you know, one in the same I think that the human centered design is sort of the broader, you know, process or intent, and then you know the UX design processes and application of human centered design but in the context of designing technology or you know digital resources. So the processes are very similar. And I think you know while it's ideal to begin with research and insights. I think what you're what you're saying around like you know, iterating on an existing site right that maybe in its conception wasn't developed through a human centered designer UX design process doesn't mean that that can't be incorporated right you know bringing in that user perspective whether it's through a value evaluative research like usability testing to kind of understand where there are pain points in the current experience, and then designing new experiences I think you know that's still you know a way to iterate and and develop your website so that you know eventually right the entire website will be designed you know with that full full UX design process so it's totally okay to take those bite size chunks and focus on a particular area. You know bring in that user perspective and redesign it and continue so it. Maybe again not in you know it's initial conception but over time becomes you know a shining example of of a you know a human centered design website. All right well unless there are other questions I think we will wrap it up right here. Just about on the nose time wise. Thank you so much Ashley. I always enjoy your webinars and presentations and they're really wonderful so. And thanks everyone for being here, we will get this. And so thank you for having us thank you, thank you, brain, this recording and the materials on to the LSM tap website. We'll get all of the, the summer series up there as soon as we can so we're lagging a little behind but we'll get there. Thanks everyone have a great rest of your week and we hope to see you next week for the final webinar in our summer self help series. Until then. Bye bye.