Designing for Extreme Accessibility - Yossi Langer to Present at EuroIA
How would you design digital tools to be used by people who can manipulate only a foot or an eye? How do you create an interface that works equally for people with full motor control and those unable to even touch a screen?
Find out in Yossi's presentation for next week's EuroIA conference in Amsterdam: "Switches, Keyguards, Eyegaze Trackers: Designing Device Interfaces for Extreme Accessibility," - inspired by a particularly interesting design challenge that Iteration Group embarked on with Prentke Romich Company (PRC) earlier this year.
PRC is a leader in speech generating software and devices. They have been been making tools to help people who cannot speak for over 50 years and asked us to redesign their user interface. This interface is used by people with autism, cerebral palsy, ALS, and other conditions that prevent speech communication.
We'll make sure to share the video after the conference, but for anyone who might be around Amsterdam in late September, stop by and say hi to Yossi or tweet him @yossilanger!
"What's Next for Texting?": Yossi Langer's Presentation at Inman Connect SF 2016
Last month, Yossi Langer, presented "What's Next for Texting" at Inman Connect's 20th year anniversary conference in San Francisco.
Inman Connect is a premier real estate technology event that is attended by thousands of influential real estate leaders each year, including some of our clients: CoreLogic, ShowingTime, Clareity, & more.
If you missed Yossi's talk or want a refresher, you can sign up for the full presentation slides and user interview notes here: http://iterationgroup.com/inman2016. We'll also post the video as soon as it's released.
Special thanks to the Inman Connect team for allowing us to speak and putting together such a successful event!
Iteration Group's Yossi Langer: Keynote Speaker at CMLS 2014 (Real Estate Industry Conference)
Approximately one-million real estate agents rely on Multiple Listing Service (MLS) software to buy and sell homes on behalf of their clients. The Council of the Multiple Listing Services (CMLS) is the premier forum and resource for the many Multiple Listing Service associations in the united states (there are about 1,000 of them).
Iteration Group's Yossi Langer, an expert in product-strategy and user-experience design, was invited to be a keynote speaker at the CMLS 2014 Conference this September in Huntington Beach, California. Yossi talked about the importance of great design and the impact that it could have on MLS's, and, more broadly, the real estate industry.
The event was a smashing success - Yossi's talk was well received and we thoroughly enjoyed meeting executives and staff from some of the most powerful and successful players in the industry. The event was sponsored by CoreLogic, Homes.com, Homesnap Pro, Real Estate Digital, Trulia, Realtor.com, Zillow, and others. Special thanks to Teryll Hopper (of marketing agency eight11.com) and Art Carter (of crmls), organizers of the event who did a fantastic job.
And it was great to meet the Clareity Security team - it looks like we may do some interesting things together with them.
We'll be posting the video of Yossi's talk when it becomes available.
Video 4 of 4: Strategies for Early Stage Companies to Be Successful at Trade Shows & Conferences
I was recently invited by the team at Docstoc to participate in their "expert" video series, meant to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals. This is part 4 of 4.
In this last video, I bring up ways for startups to be effective at trade shows:
- Don't get a booth. Expensive: space, booth itself, manning it, etc.
- Find out who will be there; identify those who you'd like to meet
- Craft a persuasive e-mail asking to meet briefly. Make it personal.
- Private room, Coffee shop
Video 3 of 4: Difference of Business Development Responsibilities During the Early Stages of a Startup
I was recently invited by the team at Docstoc to participate in their "expert" video series, meant to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals. This is part 3 of 4.
Here I talk about the difference in biz dev responsibilities during the beta stage and growth stage of a startup:
- In the early stages, it's the responsibly of the founders. Sell the vision to prospective customers. Refine the product as necessary. Get the first few deals done yourself. Figure out how to sell the product into what markets. You’re the passionate visionary – you’re the heart and soul of the company. You can’t possibly expect an outsider to be able to jump in and start selling. And if you can’t sell it yourself, don’t bother hiring.
- In the later stages, bring in folks into biz dev and tell them exactly what to do. Here’s what works, here’s what doesn't, here’s what to say, here’s what not to say - all informed by the other deals you've already done. The general sales process will be in place, the legal documents will be in place, the rollout plans in place, etc.
Video 2 of 4: How to Validate a Business Idea Spending Minimal Time & Money
I was recently invited by the team at Docstoc to participate in their "expert" video series, meant to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals. This is part 2 of 4.
Here, I talk about how to test a business idea:
- Throw something in front of customers. Create minimal marketing materials and present them to customers (in person, via mail, via search, etc). Don’t need a lot. 500 visitors or 10 in-person consultations will probably get you 90% of the information. (See: Jakob Neilsen, Hallway usability testing).
- Gauge the response. # of folks who provided email address, # of survey respondents, what they said, etc. Some of this is not scientific. Hopefully you will have verified some of your hunches. Perhaps you’ll hear something that you didn't expect.
- Refine or drop the idea. Proceed with confidence, or, further dig into some of the concerning pieces. Better to work hard at this, up front, and be honest with yourself (vs. spending lots of time and money building stuff folks don’t want).
Video 1 of 4: Four Steps to Build Great Software Products, A User Centered Approach
I was recently invited by the team at Docstoc to participate in their "expert" video series, meant to help small business owners, entrepreneurs, and individuals.
In this first video, I describe the software development process I like to follow. I think that it optimizes for the end user.
It requires a lot of focus and energy, up front, iterating on the user interface in each phase:
- Wireframes
- Design mockups
- HTML / CSS / Assets
- Development
The product person remains as the primary advocate for the user - nothing rolls out until they approve.
Lots of stuff can get lost in translation from design to development. Lots of really important nuance can be lost. Development is hard. Help the development team by clearly and consistently communicating to them what you want.