Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is May 16, 2024! GAAD was created to help bring attention and awareness to digital inclusivity. No matter your role on a project team, digital accessibility should always be a priority from start to finish. Why is accessibility so important?

• Over 1 billion people worldwide have a disability, and that number is growing every day
• 15% of people with disabilities say they never go online, compared to 5% of people without disabilities, according to Pew Research Center
• According to a survey by Click-Away Pound, 71% of disabled users are forced to leave a website if they find it difficult to use

Digital accessibility directly impacts people’s ability to access information, buy products, apply for jobs, engage in discussion, and everything else that people do online that is becoming critical for modern life. Accessible spaces even benefit people without disabilities, as it allows anyone to take in content though their preferred method (reading the captions on a video instead of listening in a noisy environment, for example), and often breeds innovation as engineers work to find the best way to be sure everyone can access information equally.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has developed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) in an effort to standardize digital accessibility. However, many websites unfortunately fail to meet these standards, leading to a lesser-quality user experience. WebAIM’s yearly report has highlighted some surprising statistics about WCAG across the top 1,000,000 home pages:

• The most common accessibility failure across home pages is low contrast text
• 98.1% of home pages have at least one WCAG 2.0 failure
• On average, there are 56.8 accessibility errors per page (this increased 13.6% from 2023!) 
• 16.8% of home pages had more than one <h1> tag

As you can see, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to create a more accessible web for everyone. If you’re interested in learning more about digital accessibility and how to improve accessibility on your own projects, there are plenty of resources and online courses available. Resources range from free, to paid courses, to professional certifications. Below are some courses and resources that we recommend.

Free Courses and Resources

If you’re looking to introduce yourself to digital accessibility, these free resources are a great place to start:  

• A11ycasts with Rob Dodson - A series of video tutorials on YouTube that highlights topics including semantics, focus, the correct way to use a button, and a11y testing
• The Beginner’s Guide to Web Accessibility - An article by Dequeue University that summarizes why digital accessibility should be a priority, and how to determine if your website is accessible
• Common Mistakes with Using Colour in Accessibility - Digital designer Andrée Lange provides insights into how to take color contrast into consideration when designing for the web
• Deque Accessibility Resources - Dequeue offers a variety of free accessibility resources, including webinars, blog posts, and their accessibility testing browser extension, axe DevTools
• HTML Semantics and Accessibility Cheat Sheet - WebAIM provides a list of the most common HTML tags that have an impact on digital accessibility
• MDN Accessibility Tutorials - MDN is an open-source project documenting web technologies, which also includes an informative section on web accessibility documentation and best practices
• Section 508 ICT Testing Baseline - Outlines minimal accessibility testing requirements for federal agencies subject to Section 508
• WCAG 2.2 Quick Reference - WCAG are a series of web accessibility guidelines released and maintained by the W3C, with 2.2 being the current version of the guidelines. This page provides a reference to standards that websites should meet in order to meet current accessibility standards
• Web.dev Learn Accessibility Course - A series of informative articles ranging from beginning a11y topics, to more advanced topics including animation and motion

Deep Dives with Paid Tutorials

If you’re a developer who has experience in accessibility and want to dig more into the topic, these comprehensive tutorials will help you improve your a11y knowledge:

• Accessible Web Academy - Accessible Web Academy includes more focused a11y courses for designers, developers, content creators, and marketers looking to target specific topics 
• Inclusive Components - There is a free online summary of Heydon Pickering’s Inclusive Components, but you can also purchase an eBook on the topic. Heydon’s blog provides examples of a pattern library that bakes accessibility into each component
• Practical Accessibility by Sara Soueidan - Sara Souedien is a prolific front-end developer who specializes in accessibility. Her course, Practical Accessibility, is a comprehensive guide for all developers, from those looking to familiarize themselves with accessibility, to experienced developers looking to expand their a11y knowledge.

Advanced Knowledge with Certifications

• If you want to take the next step and become a certified professional in accessibility, IAAP offers professional certifications in digital accessibility:
  • IAAP offers five certification options, CPACC, WAS, CPWA, ADS, and CPABE
  • Deque University offers a curriculum to help prepare for IAAP certification exams
• The Department of Homeland Security also offers a “Trusted Tester” certification for Section 508 compliance
• W3C offers a free Digital Accessibility Foundations course, with an optional verified certificate ($99) upon course completion

As the world’s population and number of disabled users continues to grow, it’s clear that implementing digital accessibility in your products is more important than ever. By implementing the information from these lists, you can help users of all abilities access the content that you share, ensuring a better internet for everyone.

When starting a new project, decision makers are faced with the dilemma of choosing a content management system (CMS). Sometimes, it’s not that simple and they must choose whether to go with a traditional CMS or a headless CMS. Both offer unique benefits and cater to different needs, making it crucial to understand when each makes sense for your project. Let’s take a look at some considerations that can help you make the right decision.

What is a Traditional CMS?

Traditional CMS’s – like Craft CMS, WordPress, and Drupal – offer a pre-packaged solution for content creation, management, and delivery. They include powerful interfaces with content editing capabilities and templating out of the box, enabling you to create sites with ease. A traditional CMS can be monolithic because the back-end and front-end are tightly coupled. Using a traditional CMS typically means you are using all of the tools included to achieve your goal.

What is a Headless CMS?

A Headless CMS is like a Traditional CMS in that it includes content creation and management tools. But it differs in the fact that the back-end content management system is decoupled from the front-end (presentation layer), allowing developers to use any technology stack they prefer for building the front-end of the site. The back-end acts as an API with its only purpose being to serve content from the database. There are CMS options like Contentful, Payload, and Strapi that are built to be headless. Popular traditional CMS’s like Craft CMS and WordPress also offer headless variants.

The Restaurant Analogy

Let’s simplify things a bit more and look at the decision using an analogy; a restaurant.

Traditional Restaurant (Traditional CMS)

Imagine a restaurant where the kitchen and dining room are connected. The chefs cook the food, and the waitstaff serve it directly to the customers in the same building. This setup means that everything is closely integrated, and the kitchen (back-end) is tightly coupled to the dining experience (front-end). Picture a scenario where the restaurant decides to change from table service to buffet style. The food now needs to be prepared in advance and delivered to the front of house in a different way, potentially even requiring new equipment. The restaurant needs to be reconfigured to not only accommodate the buffet but also to interface with the kitchen differently. Because the restaurant and kitchen are coupled, both sides would require work in order to accommodate a shift in strategy. 

Ghost Kitchen (Headless CMS)

Now, think of a ghost (or cloud) kitchen where food is prepared centrally but can be delivered to various locations or dining experiences. The kitchen (back-end) focuses solely on cooking (content creation and management) and doesn't worry about where the food is served. Instead, the meals (content) can be delivered to different endpoints like food trucks, home deliveries, or partner restaurants (or in our case websites, mobile apps, etc.). This separation allows more flexibility in how and where the content is delivered without changing the core cooking process. If a new experience requires new equipment or processes, the kitchen can be expanded without affecting the front-end experience.

When to Use a Headless CMS

Omni-Channel Content Delivery 

If you consistently need to deliver content across multiple platforms (websites, mobile apps, IoT devices), a headless CMS is ideal because it can serve the same content through APIs to any front-end. The front-end can be swapped out without any need for development to the back-end.

Scalability and Flexibility

If you want the ability to keep your content management system up-to-date independently of the presentation layer, a headless CMS can allow for more agile and scalable development. This could be especially useful if you anticipate needing to redesign or update parts of the front-end frequently without affecting the back-end content.

Front-end Framework Preferences

Maybe your team has developers who are very proficient in a particular JavaScript framework, like Next.js, SvelteKit, or Astro. The time needed to learn a new templating language could push you past your deadline. Maybe you have some cool interactive interface in mind? A headless CMS can provide the raw content for your developers to build highly custom, tailor-made front-ends in whatever language or framework they please.

Security

Going headless can offer security advantages due to its decoupled nature. By communicating via API to the front-end, data access can be controlled more granularly. Because the back-end is only responsible for content management and delivery, fewer plugins are typically used which means a smaller chance of vulnerabilities due to third-party software.

Hosting & Infrastructure

A cloud-based headless CMS offers additional advantages over a self-hosted headless CMS. It can simplify maintenance and operating costs since the cloud provider is responsible for updates and security of the platform. Cloud-based solutions like Strapi Cloud often come with integrated security features, automatic backups, and disaster recovery options.

Which will you choose?

While the flexibility and security a headless CMS offers may be great benefits, it may not be necessary for every project and could even introduce complexity. It’s important to consider the long-term purpose of the project and who will be responsible for maintaining it as well as authoring content. If your primary focus is on managing and delivering content in a structured manner with rapid development, a traditional CMS can be an excellent choice. But if you feel any of the examples I’ve laid out above align with your project’s requirements then a headless CMS may be right for you! 

Whatever route you take, remember that both Craft CMS and WordPress can be used in traditional or headless applications and are a fine choice either way! Now you know the differences between a traditional and headless CMS, and an informed decision can be made. If you have more questions or a project you think could benefit from a traditional or headless CMS, we’d love to help!

Concept testing is a research method that explores how a user perceives or interacts with a new idea. It usually takes place early in a project, and involves putting ideas into the “real world” to see how users will react to them.

Not every project needs to include concept testing, but it can make your solutions more user-centered. Involving users in the design process leads to products, sites, and experiences that are more aligned with user wants and needs — and ultimately more successful.

Concept testing is most useful when exploring ideas that are novel, complex, or risky. It can also help your team:

• Generate more purposeful, user-centered ideas.
• Identify which ideas provide the greatest value to users. 
• Prioritize the most promising idea(s), saving time and money.
• Evaluate any significant changes you make along the way.

I’ll cover how we use concept testing at Viget to help our clients gain clarity and develop user-centered solutions. 

This article will be part of a three-part series focused on concept testing. First, we’ll focus on planning out your concept testing. 

Form a clear plan

A successful concept test has a well-defined plan at its foundation from the start. At Viget, we work with clients to define what you want to learn, and who you want to learn from. 

Let’s imagine that you and your team are redesigning an online food delivery platform, and you have some new concepts that you want to test to see if they resonate with users.   

Focus on what you want to learn.

Start by defining research objectives. Think of these objectives as your north stars that will guide you and your team. You’ll use these for initial alignment, and then to frame what the prototype needs to do, and what feedback you really need.

You can create a strong set of objectives by asking:

• What initially sparked the motivation to test?
• Where do you have the most uncertainty about your concept?
• What are the key things you need to know through testing?

Teams usually have a lot of questions, and feel pressure to answer all of them at once. Resist the pressure! Instead, focus on the most pressing and critical — it will allow you to dive deeper into the most important areas in a session. Otherwise, you may not have the depth you need to move forward when you finish the testing.

Let’s say you've developed new solutions that span the whole user journey of online food delivery. You could spend a whole research session asking questions that cover all that breadth, but you would get much more depth by focusing on one particular moment in the journey, like the online ordering experience.

Think about who you want to talk to (and be holistic).

If you aren’t intentional about who you test with, you can end up with feedback that may not be applicable. Ideally, you’re talking to existing customers or people who would use the website or product in the future. Look at behaviors, like whether they’ve used a competitor, or hold specific sentiments, when recruiting participants. Perhaps you’re trying to expand your audience for your new food delivery app, so you may want to talk to people who cook at home frequently as well. 

Don’t forget to think holistically. Consider every person who might interact with this solution, from beginning to end, and who might be affected by it. For your new app, you'll want to test with the diner, but your solutions may also affect the restaurant host/hostess, cooks and cashier’s workflows for example. So you may need to capture their perspectives. 

Opinions aren’t strong evidence.

You may gravitate towards seeking preferences or opinions about your concepts (i.e., “which concept is better?”). But rather than focusing on which concept users like most, it’s more important to uncover user behavior. Preference-centric concept testing won’t teach you about how someone might actually interact with this concept. 

For instance, you’ll learn much more about which new concepts for online food ordering are most beneficial to users if you ask about how they might use it in a scenario. Or even better, you actually have them interact with each one.   

Questions like the ones below will give you stronger indications of user behavior:

• When was the last time you used [the competitor]?
• How might this concept fit into your day to day?
• How would you accomplish this task with the concept?

Avoid asking questions like “Which concept is better?” or “which one do you prefer?” Instead ask why one concept has advantages or disadvantages over another for a user, or how they actually envision it in their daily life. 

Even if the focus of the test is on preference (as is the case for branding or marketing research) it’s still helpful to dive deeper into what a user feels the design is communicating to them and why that prompts a specific reaction.

These key strategies that I’ve covered should get you a jump-start for successfully planning out your first concept test.

In the next article in the series, I'll dive into prototyping.

When Viget was founded in 1999, Andy and I used the title “Founding Partner.” We were founders of the business and also committed business partners. Within a couple of years, we switched to more specific titles: Co-Founder and President (Andy) and Co-Founder and CEO (me), but “business partners” was always the key structure.

We divided responsibilities of leadership, delivery, and operations in ways that optimized our different strengths and weaknesses. Key decision making has always been a collaborative process, with healthy debate between the two of us. I know some incredible solo entrepreneurs, but for us, having a partner to lean on, leverage, and grow with has been not only rewarding, it’s been essential to Viget’s longevity and success.

Also key to our success has been a founding principle of hiring incredible people who share our values and vision, value longevity and lasting relationships, and take pride in their work and careers. As they’ve joined, we’ve shared the opportunities and responsibilities that come with running a healthy business. Empowering others to lead key parts of Viget has taken us further than we’d ever gone otherwise.

Being owners and partners in the business has always been a privilege, an honor, and, at times, a stressful burden. When things go well – clients are happy, the team is gelling, the finances are solid – I’m filled with pride, satisfaction, and calm. When things aren’t going well – projects are sideways, turnover seems contagious, and the metrics point in the wrong direction – I’m filled with anxiety, frustration, and self-doubt. In either scenario, having a partner to navigate the waters with has been vital.

In recent years, three key areas of our business have matured thanks to the overall strength of our team and especially strong leadership. Our sales and marketing systems, tools, and strategies have fed a much more predictable revenue engine with great clients. Our client delivery processes and best practices have helped us consistently deliver value for our clients with more clarity, less risk, and better results. Finally, through some very challenging years in our industry, our culture has grown stronger and more adaptable, still centered on meaningful human connections at the core.

These three business areas have been led by Zach Robbins (sales and marketing), Kelly Kenny (delivery), and Emily Bloom (culture). They are the pillars upon which all other aspects of the business are built. These leaders have truly grown up with the business, having joined more than 13, 14, and 17 years ago, respectively. Their impact first as individual contributors, then managers, and eventually strategic leaders has been immeasurable.

Viget is coming up on a major milestone: we’ll soon eclipse 25 years since our founding on December 27, 1999. As Andy and I looked out at the next decade and beyond of our business, expanding our partnership became a clear goal. Embracing additional partners to not just lead their area of the business but to weigh in on all major decisions would help Viget continue to mature into the business we believe it can be. We saw an opportunity to invite others into the deep water of business partnership – the good, bad, and ugly – so that our shared decision making can be sharper, more insightful, and more strategic in the years to come.

At our fall retreat last week, we announced that we're welcoming Emily, Zach, and Kelly as partners at Viget. They’ve each been here for more than half of Viget’s history, each shaping Viget into what it is today. As partners, they’ll have even more influence as we take Viget into our second quarter century and beyond.

This is part two of a three-part series on how to successfully conduct concept testing with users, focused on prototyping. Check out part one (planning) to learn more.
 

Prototype your concepts

Once a well-aligned research plan has been crafted, it’s time to create a prototype (or multiple) based on your concept. There are a plethora of ways you can create prototypes that communicate your concepts to users; I’ll cover strategies that will help spark meaningful reactions and conversation.

Provide context to ground your concept

We humans as a whole are poor predictors of our own future behaviors, so it’s really important that your concept testing simulates the future experience you’re trying to test. Ideally, you want to ground your concepts, so a participant can envision it in their own day-to-day. One of the best ways to do this is by building in context, whether into the prototype itself or in the way you actually test out the concepts.

You can ground a participant in what they would actually do by: 

• Adding small contextual details into the prototype (e.g. the participant’s name or location). 
• Providing the participant with a realistic scenario to frame the prototypes
• Designing a certain scenario into the actual prototype (e.g. error messages appear in).  
• Conducting the test in the actual or simulated environment where it will be used. 

Grounding a participant can make a difference in how someone interacts with your prototype. Let’s imagine you and your team are redesigning a part of an online food delivery platform for restaurants, specifically the parts that hosts and cashiers use. When you put your concept to the test, you can ground participants by “simulating” a lunch rush atmosphere (distractions, loud noises, etc).

Build real-ish prototypes

It might sound counterintuitive but you don’t need high-fidelity prototypes for concept testing. While high-fidelity prototypes may best simulate the future experience, that level of fidelity may not be feasible for a few reasons: 

• You don’t have the time to create something at that level of detail or complexity before testing.
• You don’t have the details fleshed out yet.
• You want your users to help define these details with you. 

Low to mid-fidelity (or as I like to call “real-ish”) prototypes can still get you to the insights you need and even have some unexpected benefits. It’s easier for research participants to focus on overarching concepts when interacting with low-fidelity prototypes. Higher fidelity prototypes tend to invoke feedback hyper-focused on the details. With lower-fidelity, research participants are more likely to provide critical feedback on ideas, since they don’t seem as “final.” You can also leave out certain details in a low-fidelity concept, which allows you to brainstorm with participants.

Again, crafting context is a large part of building out an idea that starts to feel “real” enough for a user to invoke a response. Some examples of real-ish prototypes with just enough context include: 

• Setting the stage with realistic scenarios for how and when research participants would reach out to an AI chat bot in a therapy app.
• Creating initial wireframes for a ride-sharing app that research participants test out in a simulated car ride experience, to understand what info is most helpful at each moment on the ride.
• Sending research participants “updates” on their food delivery order, to learn what participants might want to know about their order’s progress. 

Be selective about which concepts to show

You may have several concepts (or variations on a single concept) that you want to prototype out, and test through research. They may all feel exciting and important, but showing too many in one session can leave a research participant with decision fatigue. Even if you need to test multiple concepts to move forward, you don’t want to show every single one you’ve come up with.

Instead, you’ll want to be selective. One way to help you decide which concepts are best to test is by mapping them out on a matrix.

Let’s imagine again you and your team have generated multiple concepts for your food delivery app that aim to tempt users to order takeout more frequently. Perhaps some concepts focus on individualized recommendations, while other concepts show social trends. First, create a matrix that has extreme aspects of the concepts on each end and place them where you think they might belong. 

Then, ask yourself a few questions: 

• Are there two concepts that are too similar to each other? 
• Is this concept playing it too safe?

These kinds of concepts may not give you useful feedback because they’re not distinct enough or they’re too neutral over all. Instead, you’ll want to select concepts that are on the edges of your extremes. Those concepts will allow you to learn much more about your users and how they might interact with your concepts in the future.

These tips will help you craft prototypes that research participants can more easily and accurately react to. 

To end this series, I’ll discuss how to prepare for the actual testing in my next article.