We all want interfaces that feel human—where the content is friendly and everything flows right along. But being human isn’t just about being breezy.
Every user who interacts with your site comes there with personal histories—with pain and problems, with past traumas or present crises. How can we take our users’ vulnerabilities, triggers, and touchy subjects into account when we don’t even know what they are? What would it mean to optimize not just for seamlessness, but for kindness? This talk discusses how clear intentions and compassionate communication can strengthen everything from form questions to headlines to site structures.
12. ‘‘When I look out at this room I see a comparatively small
number of faces but I also see a trillion heartbeats. Not
your own heartbeats, but those of your users…
If we are going to ask them to spend their heartbeats on
us, on our ideas, how can we be sure, far more sure than
we are now, that they spend those heartbeats wisely?
—Paul Ford, “Ten Timeframes”
34. ‘‘These assumptions… are yet another example of
technology telling queer, unpartnered, infertile, and/or
women uninterested in procreating that they aren’t
even women.
—Maggie Delano
35. ‘‘It’s telling women that the only women worth designing
technology for are those women who are capable of
conceiving and who are not only in a relationship, but
in a sexual relationship, and in a sexual relationship
with someone who can potentially get them pregnant.
—Maggie Delano
48. Your Name Wasn’t Approved.
It looks like that name violates our name
standards. You can enter an updated
name again in 1 minute. To make sure
the updated name complies with our
policies, please read more about what
names are allowed on Facebook.
49. Your Name Wasn’t Approved.
It looks like that name violates our name
standards. You can enter an updated
name again in 1 minute. To make sure
the updated name complies with our
policies, please read more about what
names are allowed on Facebook.
50. Your Name Wasn’t Approved.
It looks like that name violates our name
standards. You can enter an updated
name again in 1 minute. To make sure
the updated name complies with our
policies, please read more about what
names are allowed on Facebook.
51. Your Name Wasn’t Approved.
It looks like that name violates our name
standards. You can enter an updated
name again in 1 minute. To make sure
the updated name complies with our
policies, please read more about what
names are allowed on Facebook.
52. Your Name Wasn’t Approved.
It looks like that name violates our name
standards. You can enter an updated
name again in 1 minute. To make sure
the updated name complies with our
policies, please read more about what
names are allowed on Facebook.
96. A question protocol includes:
• Every question you ask
• Who within your organization uses the answers
• What they use them for
• Whether an answer is required or optional
• If an answer is required, what happens if a user
enters any old thing just to get through the form
—Caroline Jarrett, “The Question Protocol”
97. ‘‘This is the uncomfortable truth—everything is a
trigger for someone.
—Roxane Gay,
“The Illusion of Safety/The Safety of Illusion”
110. MailChimp is:
• fun but not childish
• clever but not silly
• powerful but not complicated
• smart but not stodgy
• cool but not alienating
• informal but not sloppy
• helpful but not overbearing
• expert but not bossy
—Kate Kiefer Lee, “Tone and Voice”
111.
112.
113.
114.
115. ‘‘
Over the years we’ve moved to a much more neutral voice
…We focus on clarity over cleverness and personality.
We are not in an industry that is associated with crisis, but
we don’t know what our readers and customers are going
through. And our readers and customers are people. They
could be in an emergency and they still have to use the
internet.
—Kate Kiefer Lee,
Mailchimp content director
121. ‘‘We’re pretty good at being able to kind of get inside
somebody else’s head and sort of model their task…
But that cognitive empathy, that’s actually just one level
of empathy.
—Karen McGrane
122. ‘‘There’s actually a much deeper level of it that you
would call compassion. What that means is that you
have genuine emotional feeling for the struggles that
someone is going through and you are spontaneously
moved to help them because you feel them.
—Karen McGrane