Optimal Blog

User research is vital to the product development process as it helps product teams understand their users' needs, behaviors, preferences, and pain points. By gathering insights from various research methods, such as user interviews, surveys, usability testing, and analytics data, product teams can make informed decisions based on evidence, rather than assumptions or personal opinions.

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A UX research repository is a centralized database that stores all user research conducted by a product team, making it easily accessible and shareable across the entire team. There are many benefits to having a UX research repository, such as saving time and resources, enabling data-driven decision-making, and keeping everyone on the product team informed about user needs and preferences.

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Specialized tools, like the Treejack tool, can make UX research easier, quicker, and more collaborative. In this article, we’ll discuss a bunch of tools and how they can (and should!) contribute to a centralized UX research repository.

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Why a UX Research Repository is Necessary for Product Teams

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A centralized UX research repository is a valuable asset for product teams to store and access research data related to user experience. It enables product managers and development teams to better understand their user's behavior, preferences, and expectations, which in turn enables them to make informed design and development decisions.

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One of the key benefits of UX research repositories, like the Reframer tool, is that it saves time and resources. By storing user research data in one central location, teams can easily access and reuse existing research data. This saves them from having to conduct the same research repeatedly, which can be a waste of precious time and resources. Additionally, a centralized UX research repository can help teams to identify gaps in their research and prioritize areas for future research.

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Another advantage of a UX research repository is that it facilitates collaboration across the entire team. With a central repository, research findings can be shared and discussed, enabling cross-functional collaboration. This promotes transparency and helps to ensure that everyone is working towards the same goals. It also helps to avoid duplication of effort, as team members can easily see what others have done, and what is still required.

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Additionally, a UX research repository helps to ensure consistency in research practices. By defining research methodology, protocols, and use of prescribed specialized tools, product teams can collect data systematically and compare findings across different studies. This helps to ensure that the insights gained from user research are reliable and accurate, which in turn can be used to guide design decisions.

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The Benefits of a UX Research Repository for Product Managers

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A UX research repository helps product managers in several ways, including supporting informed product decisions, enhancing the user experience, and providing stakeholders with evidence-based research.

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One of the significant advantages of a UX research repository is that it provides product managers with a wealth of data to make informed product decisions. Through usability testing, user interviews, and first-click testing (check out the Chalkmark tool), product managers can gain insights into how users interact with their products, what they like and dislike, and how they use them. By storing all this data in a central repository, product managers can quickly access all research data, not just their own, to inform their decisions about product development and design.

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Another advantage of a UX research repository is that it helps to enhance user experience. Using video clips and other multimedia, product managers can share research findings with their team members and stakeholders, making it easier to understand user needs and preferences. This helps ensure that the product design is aligned with user needs, resulting in a better user experience.

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Finally, a UX research repository provides stakeholders with evidence-based research to support product decisions. By presenting research findings to stakeholders, product managers can confidently stand behind future recommendations and iterations. This evidence-based approach helps to demonstrate that decisions are grounded in data and not just intuition or opinion.

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The Role of Specialized Tools in UX Research

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Specialized tools are essential for conducting high-quality UX research as they provide User Researchers with powerful data collection, analysis, and visualization features. These tools are particularly useful for conducting usability testing, user interviews, and surveys, as they help researchers to gather reliable and accurate data from users. Integrating these specialized tools into a UX research repository can help product teams to streamline their research process and facilitate collaboration within the team.

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One such specialized tool is Treejack, which helps researchers to test the information architecture of a product or website. By using Treejack, researchers can review how users interact with navigation, site structure, and content, to ensure users can quickly and easily find the information they need. The results can then be stored in a UX research repository, allowing the team to access and analyze the data at any time.

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Chalkmark is another tool that can enhance the quality of research by providing heatmaps and click-density grids of user interactions. These interactions can be tested on mockups and wireframes. Chalkmark helps researchers to identify where users are clicking and which areas are receiving the most attention, providing valuable insights for product design. By integrating Chalkmark into a UX research repository, product teams can store and access the data, making it easier to share insights and collaborate on product development.

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Another useful tool is Reframer, which helps researchers to capture insights from user interviews and user testing sessions. Reframer enables researchers to record and transcribe interviews, tag key insights, and share findings with the team - acting as a functional research repository.

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The Role of User Interviews and Usability Testing in UX Research

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User interviews and usability testing are used in UX research to gather insights into user behavior, needs, and preferences. User interviews involve a one-on-one conversation between a User Researcher and a participant, where the researcher asks open-ended questions to understand the user's perspective. Usability testing, on the other hand, involves observing users as they interact with a product to identify usability issues.

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Specialized tools play a crucial role in conducting user interviews and usability testing efficiently and effectively. These tools can help with data collection, organization, and analysis, making the research process more streamlined and insightful.

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OptimalSort is a specialized tool that aids in conducting card sorting activities for usability testing. Card sorting involves asking users to organize concepts or items into categories to understand how they think about and categorize information. The OptimalSort tool enables researchers to conduct card sorting activities remotely and collect data on how participants group and label items. The tool also generates data visualizations and reports that can be added to the UX research repository for further analysis.

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Optimal Workshop’s Reframer tool, mentioned earlier, has been designed specifically to enable researchers to capture and organize interview data in real-time. Researchers can tag and categorize interview data, making it easier to analyze and identify patterns across participants. It then stores this information in a centralized location for all research insights.  Reframer also generates reports and data visualizations, making data efficient to share and analyze across teams.

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Conclusion

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A UX research repository empowers entire teams to make informed product decisions, enhance user experiences, and provide stakeholders with evidence-based research. They can also support awareness and participation in UX among senior leaders, encouraging further research. 

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Teams are increasingly using specialized tools like Treejack, Chalkmark, OptimalSort, and Reframer to conduct high-quality UX research as they provide powerful data collection, analysis, and visualization features. By using these tools together, product teams can streamline their research process and facilitate improved collaboration within the team. 

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Are you interested in the benefits of a UX research repository? Check out how Optimal Workshop’s specialized research tools can add value to not only the quality of your data, but how your team collects, analyzes, and shares the results!

In many ways, Information architecture (IA) is the backbone of a digital product or service. It is a conceptual structure for information, designed in a way that allows users to navigate and interact with it in a meaningful way. This is done by organizing, structuring, and labeling content that is intuitive for users. IA considers user needs and goals, as well as the relationships between different types of content, in order to create a user-centric design.

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An effective IA design approach leads to better user experiences as it ensures that information is presented in a logical and intuitive way. Essentially, good IA attempts to reduce the chance of a clunky, frustrating user experience by organizing information in a way that makes sense for the target user. 

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In this article, we’ll discuss the history of information architecture and how user research impacts its effectiveness. We’ll also discuss the roles of conceptual and structural design in user experience. And along the way, we’ll introduce Optimal Workshop’s IA tools, and how they can help you design exceptional IA.

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The Beginning of Information Architecture

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The world is full of information and humans have always had a knack for structuring and organizing it. Take libraries, for example. In ancient Egypt, workers in the Library of Alexandria created a catalog of 120 scrolls to order and describe the inventory. They needed to - estimates of the number of scrolls the library contained range between 40,000 and 400,000! Fast-forward to 1873, and Melvil Dewey came up with the Dewey Decimal System to further categorize and universalize much larger collections of books. Why come up with these solutions? To efficiently comb through, and navigate, masses of information.

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As computer technology started to rise more prominently in the 1950s and 1960s, we started organizing computer programs and system designs in a way that made them easier to navigate too. In fact, IBM first mentioned the term architecture in a computational context in 1959 [ref]. When the wonderful ‘worldwide web’ was born in the 1990s, digital information began to be displayed and interacted with on a much larger scale. And, like our librarians, the world decided that online order was desperately needed. This is where the foundations of information architecture as we know it today really started to take shape.

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In 1998, Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld wrote the book ‘Information Architecture for the World Wide Web’, which became Amazon’s best internet book that year. The authors integrated the ‘librarian’ approach to IA, where the main goal is to design a system where information is labeled for easy navigation and search. This focus on user-centric, logical design has become the backbone of user experience (UX) design today, and why Optimal Workshop’s Treejack tool, among other, exist for researching and designing great IA.

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Organizational Structures

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Information architecture is like the blueprint of your digital product - it’s a conceptual structure of how content is organized and arranged to create seamless interactions. But, no matter how much experience you have, or how much you trust your instincts, you will never truly get inside your end users' minds without performing user research. They will be the ones to tell you what information is relevant to them, how to structure it, and even how to label and categorize it.

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There are some best practices for organizing information. Start by ordering your content from most critical to least. Think like a web page. What will immediately engage a user, and what subsequent content will keep them engaged? This exercise helps to prioritize and order content. Next, think about how your information should be grouped or categorized. Content that is grouped intuitively helps users consume and navigate information on your website or digital product. Another useful exercise is to consider how different users might access your content. Mapping user journeys (often with entirely different users in mind), challenges how you design your organizational structures in a way that meets multiple users' needs.

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But, while those principles can get you started, user research is where designing modern, user-centric products really begins. In terms of information architecture and organizing content, card sorting is one of the most effective ways of designing conceptual structures. Card sorting, executed by Optimal Workshop’s OptimalSort tool, for example, involves asking people to arrange things like labels, articles, and products in a way that makes sense to them. People are different, and the benefit of this technique is that you can identify how information is most commonly organized. It also highlights potential ambiguity that you may need to address early on in the design of your IA.

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Conceptual and Structural Design

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The roles of conceptual and structural design in user experience are crucial in the development of effective information architecture and user experience (UX) design. Conceptual design involves the creation of a high-level, abstract representation of the overall structure of the information architecture, which helps designers to understand the content, functionality, and overall user experience. Generally, there are limited or no restrictions as to what shape the design can take. Structural design, on the other hand, involves the development of the actual information architecture, including the organization of content, navigation systems, and interaction design.

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Effective conceptual and structural design can significantly improve user experience by creating a clear and consistent design language. This allows your target users to easily understand and navigate through content, leading to better engagement and satisfaction. Essentially, well-structured IA can increase the accessibility of content, making it easier for users to find the information they are looking for, regardless of their level of experience with the website or digital product.

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Tools such as Optimal Workshop's Chalkmark tool can help designers to test and validate their conceptual and structural design decisions by enabling them to create and analyze user interactions with information architecture. This helps designers identify areas of the structure that are confusing or difficult to navigate, which can then be streamlined to create a more intuitive user experience.

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The Evolution of Information Architecture

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As we discussed earlier, modern information architecture is no longer limited to physical implementation, like libraries, but instead extends to digital platforms and software applications. With the rise of the internet and mobile devices, IA has become a critical aspect of UX design. The focus has shifted from organizing information in a static, hierarchical manner to creating dynamic and interactive information environments that adapt to the needs of individual users.

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One of the key changes in IA has been the shift towards a more user-centered design approach. This involves creating IA that is tailored to the needs and preferences of specific user groups, such as individuals with disabilities or users with different levels of technical expertise. This approach requires a deep understanding of user needs and behaviors, which is achieved through research and user testing. This research is increasingly done remotely and online using a suite of tools, like those provided by Optimal Workshop.

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Optimal Workshop's Reframer tool, for example, allows designers to collaborate and capture user insights and translate them into design solutions. This tool helps designers to identify patterns in user behavior and preferences, enabling them to create IA that is intuitive and easy to use.

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As technology continues to evolve, IA is likely to become even more integral to UX design. With the emergence of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, designers will need to create IA that is capable of adapting to these new interfaces and provide solid structures that lead to seamless user experiences.

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Conclusion

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Information architecture is an essential aspect of user experience design that involves organizing, structuring, and labeling digital content in a way that makes it easy for users to find and understand. Great IA leads to better user experiences by presenting information in intuitive and logical designs. This is why information architecture is crucial for website design.

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The history of IA as we know it today dates back to the 1950s and evolved with the rise of the internet. Now, we think of modern IA design as being user-centric, which involves in-depth research to understand users' needs and goals. Optimal Workshop's IA tools, such as Treejack, OptimalSort, and Chalkmark, can help designers create exceptional IA by testing and validating conceptual and structural designs. 

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Well-structured information architecture can significantly improve the accessibility of content, which leads to better engagement and user satisfaction. This will become increasingly important as users interact with technology through new mediums, like virtual and augmented reality. So, remember to set solid foundations by investing in IA design when you start your next project!

When we first think of a beautiful website or app design, we rarely think of content structures, labels, and categories. But that’s exactly where great design and seamless user experiences begin. Beneath fancy fonts, layout, colors, and animations are the real heroes of user-centric design - information architecture and navigation.

Information architecture (IA) is like the blueprint of your website or app - it’s a conceptual content structure of how content is organized and arranged to create seamless interactions. And as useful as your information may be, if your navigation is flawed, users won’t be able to find it. They’ll simply leave your site and look elsewhere.

So, how does navigation and information architecture complement each other to create seamless user experiences?

Understanding Information Architecture

Information architecture refers to the practice of organizing, structuring, and labeling content and information to enhance the user's understanding and navigation of a website or application. It involves designing an intuitive, user-friendly, and efficient system to help users find and access the information they need easily. Good IA is essential for delivering a positive user experience and ensuring that your users can achieve their goals effectively.

IA is often confused with navigation structure. Navigation is a part of IA, and it refers to the way users move through a website or application. IA involves more than navigation; it encompasses the overall organization, labeling, and structure of content and information.

There are three key components of IA: organizational structure, content structure, and navigation structure. The organizational structure defines how information is organized, including the categories, subcategories, and relationships between them. The content structure refers to the way information is arranged and presented, including the hierarchy of information and the types of content used. The navigation structure outlines the pathways and components used for navigating through the information, such as menus, links, and search functions.

Some of the critical navigation components used in IA include menus, site maps, breadcrumb trails, and search functions. Site maps provide a visual representation of the site's structure, while breadcrumb trails show users where they are in the site's hierarchy. Search functions allow users to find specific information quickly.

Navigation: A Vital Element of Information Architecture

Navigation refers to the process of providing users with a means of moving through a website or application to access the information they need. Navigation is an integral part of IA, as it guides users through the organizational structure and content structure of a site, allowing them to find and access the information they require efficiently.

There are several types of navigation, including utility navigation and content navigation. Utility navigation refers to the elements that help users perform specific actions, such as logging in, creating an account, subscribing, or sharing content. Content navigation, on the other hand, refers to the elements used to guide users through the site's content, such as menus, links, and buttons.

Both types of navigation provide users with a roadmap of how the site is organized and how they can access/interact with the information they need. Effective navigation structures are designed to be intuitive and easy to use, minimizing the time and effort required for users to find and access the information they need.

The key elements of effective navigation include clear labeling, logical grouping, and consistency across the site. Clear labeling helps users understand what information they can expect to find under each navigation element, while logical grouping ensures that related content is grouped together, making it easier for users to find what they need. Consistency ensures that users can predict how the site is organized and can find the information they need quickly and easily.

Designing Navigation for a Better User Experience

Since navigation structures need to be intuitive and easy to use, it goes without saying that usability testing is central to determining what is deemed ‘intuitive’ in the first place. What you might deem intuitive, may not be to your target user

We’ve discussed how clear labeling, logical grouping, and consistency are key elements for designing navigation, but can they be tested and confirmed? One common usability test is called card sorting. Card sorting is a user research technique that helps you discover how people understand, label and categorize information. It involves asking users to sort various pieces of information or content into categories. Researchers use card sorting to inform decisions about product categorization, menu items, and navigation structures. Remember, researching these underlying structures also informs your information architecture - a key factor in determining good website design.

Tree testing is another invaluable research tool for creating intuitive and easy to use navigation structures. Tree testing examines how easy it is for your users to find information using a stripped-back, text-only representation of your website - almost like a sitemap. Rather than asking users to sort information, they are asked to perform a navigation task, for example, “where would you find XYZ product on our site?”. Depending on how easy or difficult users find these tasks gives you a great indication of the strengths and weaknesses of your underlying site structure, which then informs your navigation design.

Combine usability testing and the following tips to nail your next navigation design:

• Keep it simple: Simple navigation structures are easier for users to understand and use. Limit the number of navigation links and group related content together to make it easier for users to find what they need.
• Use clear and descriptive labels: Navigation labels should be clear and descriptive, accurately reflecting the content they lead to. Avoid using vague or confusing labels that could confuse users.
• Make it consistent: Consistency across the navigation structure makes it easier for users to understand how the site is organized and find the information they need. Use consistent labeling, grouping, and placement of navigation elements throughout the site.
• Test and refine: Usability testing is essential for identifying and refining navigation issues. Regular testing can help designers make improvements and ensure the navigation structure remains effective and user-friendly.

Best Practices for Information Architecture and Navigation

Both information architecture and navigation design contribute to great user experience (UX) design by making it easier for users to find the information they need quickly and efficiently. Information architecture helps users understand the relationships between different types of content and how to access them, while navigation design guides users through the content logically and intuitively.

In addition to making it easier for users to find information, great information architecture and navigation design can also help improve engagement and satisfaction. When users can find what they're looking for quickly and easily, they're more likely to stay on your website or application and explore more content. By contrast, poor information architecture and navigation design can lead to frustration, confusion, and disengagement.

So, when it comes to information architecture vs navigation, what are the best practices for design? We discussed some of the best practices for navigation design in the last section i.e. keep it simple, provide clear labels, and be consistent. Great navigation structure generally considers two factors: (1) what you want your users to do and, (2) what your users want to do. Strike a balance between the two, but ultimately your navigation system should focus on the needs of your users. Be sure to use simple language and remember to nest content into user-friendly categories.

Since great navigation design is typically a result of great IA design, it should come as no surprise that the key design principles of IA focus on similar principles. Dan Brown’s eight design principles lay out the best practices of IA design:

• The principle of objects: Content should be treated as a living, breathing thing. It has lifecycles, behaviors, and attributes.
• The principle of choices: Less is more. Keep the number of choices to a minimum.
• The principle of disclosure: Show a preview of information that will help users understand what kind of information is hidden if they dig deeper.
• The principle of examples: Show examples of content when describing the content of the categories.
• The principle of front doors: Assume that at least 50% of users will use a different entry point than the home page.
• The principle of multiple classifications: Offer users several different classification schemes to browse the site’s content.
• The principle of focused navigation: Keep navigation simple and never mix different things.
• The principle of growth: Assume that the content on the website will grow. Make sure the website is scalable.

Conclusion

Information architecture and navigation are the unsung heroes of website design that work in synchrony to create seamless user experiences. Information architecture refers to the practice of organizing and structuring content and information, while navigation guides users through the site's structure and content. Both are integral to creating intuitive user experiences.

In many ways, navigation and information architecture share the same traits necessary for success. They both require clear, logical structure, as well as clear labeling and categorization. Their ability to deliver on these traits often determines how well a website or application meets your users needs. Of course, IA and navigation designs should be anchored by user research and usability testing, like card sorting and tree testing, to ensure user experiences are as intuitive as possible!

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

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Susanna Carman

The post-pandemic landscape is defined by increased levels of uncertainty and disruption in both personal and professional contexts. Tech sector layoffs as well as education and health care employee burnout are just some examples of the human resource challenges we face at a time when our best, most creative selves are required to meet the challenge of larges-scale systems change. Regardless of our functional roles within orgs, conditions demand we enhance our capacity for self-leadership in ways that make us more adaptive at navigating change.

Susanna Carman joins us to lead an exploration of our very human resistance to change. Together we will be introduced to a practice that reveals the gap between our great intentions, the results we actually produce, and the potential for adaptation that is available to us when we unlock the energy bound up in this polarising tension.

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Speaker Bio

Susanna Carman is a Strategic Designer and research-practitioner who helps people solve complex problems, the types of problems that have to do with services, systems and human interactions. Specializing in design, leadership and learning, Susanna brings a high value toolkit and herself as Thinking Partner to design leadership and change practitioners who are tasked with delivering sustainable solutions amidst disruptive conditions. 

Susanna holds a Masters of Design Futures degree from RMIT University, and has over a decade of combined experience delivering business performance, cultural alignment and leadership development outcomes to the education, health, community development and financial services sectors. She is also the founder and host of Transition Leadership Lab, a 9-week learning lab for design, leadership and change practitioners who already have a sophisticated set of tools and mindsets, but still feel these are insufficient to meet the challenge of leading change in a rapidly transforming world.

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n' Learn

Every month we have fun and informative “bite sized” presentations to add some inspiration to your lunch break.  These virtual events allow us to partner with amazing speakers, community groups and organizations to share their insights and hot takes on a variety of topics impacting our industry. 

Join us at the end of every month for Lunch n' Learn.

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Sarah Pulis

Annotating designs with accessibility information is a powerful way to focus on accessibility in the design phase, as well as communicate your accessibility decisions to others in your team.

In this presentation, Sarah will talk about why accessibility annotations are useful, what they can be used for and how you can use popular design tools such as Figma to document accessibility requirements.

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Speaker Bio

Sarah is co-founder and director at Intopia. She has been working in accessibility and inclusive design for 13 years. She has a breadth of knowledge and experience helping organisations create more inclusive digital products and services. One minute she may be talking with senior leadership about strategic accessibility programs, the next she is getting technical with designers and developers. She is also affectionately known as the walking WCAG by her team.

Sarah is an extremely passionate accessibility advocate. She is founder of A11y Bytes and A11y Camp, Australia’s largest accessibility and inclusive design events which supports the sharing of knowledge and community connection.

Grab your lunch, invite your colleagues and we hope to see you at our next Lunch n' Learn

Optimal Workshop, a leading provider of User Research and Information Architecture tools, is pleased to announce the appointment of Anne Ting to its board of directors. Ting, who is currently the Chief Design Officer at Totango, brings a wealth of expertise in design and user experience to the Optimal Workshop team.

“We’re so excited to have Anne join our board,” said Andrew Mayfield, CEO of Optimal Workshop. “We are confident that she will make a significant contribution to the company's future success and that her unique perspective will be instrumental in shaping the company's culture and values.”

Ting has over 20 years of experience in marketing, operations and design. At Totango, she is responsible for leading go-to-market, research, and user experience across web, product, and the entire customer journey. Prior to joining Totango, Ting held senior roles at several technology companies, including Unity and Wishlife, where she was responsible for operations, growth and customer success. 

"I am thrilled to join the board of directors for Optimal Workshop. The company is dedicated to empowering designers and researchers around the world to create better digital experiences, and I look forward to contributing my expertise to help drive their mission forward," said Anne Ting, Chief Design Officer at Totango.

About Optimal Workshop

Optimal Workshop is a user research platform that gathers fast, actionable insights necessary for understanding user needs and making informed decisions. Our superior analysis tools, testing methods and participant recruitment options increase efficiency and empower teams to deliver customer focused solutions. Our products have created value for a diverse range of roles including UX designers and researchers, content strategists, information architects, and more. Learn more about how we can help you create better user experiences today!