2021 IAC

Most of us know to design keeping accessibility in mind. But, you may not have thought much about what it means to design for a multi-generational audience. “Designing for aging” usually calls up images of medical or health-focused products, not the programs and websites used in business today. But the workforce around you is evolving at a rapid rate. Gains in longevity, advances in healthy aging, and increasingly flexible workspaces mean workforces in the future will look very different than they do today. More folks are willing and able to work into their 70s and 80s, and due to economic realities, retirement is not an option for many. Add in declining birth rates and you can see why companies are gearing up for workforces that may include up to five generations. But few are talking about how to design for these new users who are tech-savvy, but have needs created by aging.

After years spent designing accessibility into AT&T’s, recently, I began looking at how to design for this aging population. The good news is “We’ve got this. You already have the tools you need if you apply the VIMM model of user loads and the Accessibility Guidelines published by the WC3 to your work. In this talk, we’ll walk through the requirements of an older generation of worker and how to create effective solution using these tools. You’ll discover that the designs you start creating will bring you back to the basics of what good design is all about. By designing products that are accessible to all your users, you’ll be creating work that will enable the changing workplace to be a productive and inclusive space for all – including yourself. ‘Cause let’s face it – we’re all aging, but as the old saying goes, it sure beats the alternative.

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Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging in every industry and as it does, members of our practice may respond with mixtures of awe, confusion, concern and inspiration. In our work, we seek to expand collaboration between the human and machine, placing the machine in a role of enabling human outcomes and understanding. While sometimes we hear people describe AI as an “emerging intelligence” it is, in truth, the emergent collaboration with humans that fosters positive personal, societal, and environmental outcomes. This collaboration places Information Architects in a central role for developing valuable AI capabilities.

In this talk we’ll introduce three scenarios as an approachable entry point to explore the relationship between AI systems and the people engaged with them. The scenarios demonstrate that AI systems and their human counterparts both bring unique strengths and weaknesses to the relationship, and as they are both (somewhat) autonomous entities, their interactions require coordination and negotiation. With these scenarios as introduction, we will draw on our range of experiences to outline a framework that IAs can take away to help them think about the key issues in design for AI systems. The framework encompasses items that are common across various types of design for AI, as well as items that are unique to particular tools, projects and contexts.

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