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Photo

Edinburgh — Personal — Society
Torn-off portion of a leaflet advertising Savacentre. A large colourful logo appears in the middle. To the left are the store's opening hours. To the right are alterations to the opening hours for holiday Mondays. The small print says: "Prices valid until Saturday, 2nd June 1990."

I found some very vintage but surprisingly pristine litter in Morningside a few weeks ago.

My eye was drawn by the Savacentre branding (not a thing any more).

I was surprised to discover that this partial leaflet dates from spring 1990.

The reverse of the leaflet, showing two coupons that have been torn off. 15p off any pack of breakfast cereal. 10p off any pre-packed salad or lettuce 50p or more. The coupons were "Valid until Saturday 2nd June 1990s at Savacentre only." The graphic design is very of its time, with tall serif fonts, bright colours and jaunty illustrations.

Unfortunately the coupons are no longer valid.

Another fresh start

Circular arrow with point at the top of the circle, signifying a reset

Personal — Web

I have decided to refresh my approach to blogging (yet again). There are a couple of main drivers for this.

Getting to the root causes of usability errors and accessibility problems — User Vision ↗

Linknote

Edinburgh — User experience — Work

Perception–Cognition–Action (PCA) analysis is a method of uncovering the root causes of usability errors and accessibility challenges in systems. By understanding these underlying issues, designs can be enhanced in order to avoid hazardous situations and cater to a wide array of user needs.

The approach is particularly recommended for medical devices, and is described in the international standard IEC 62366 on the application of usability engineering to medical devices. But this powerful technique can go so much further than that. It can help us understand how to improve usability and accessibility for a wide range of products.

My article for the User Vision website describes how the Perception–Cognition–Action approach works, how it aligns with established accessibility best practice, and how we at User Vision have applied it to transform a complex medical system used by both patients and healthcare practitioners.

I will also be speaking about the technique at this week’s UX Edinburgh meetup, which is an accessibility special in recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day. If you are around on Thursday 16 May at 18:30, it would be great to see you there.