Ema Talam – a new PhD student in the Business School
Ema Talam has recently joined the Business School to start research for her PhD. Her topic is “Evaluating the potential of public policy to jointly promote firms’ exporting and innovation”, supervised by Dr Mehtap Hisarciklilar-Riegler and Professor Geoff Pugh.
Ema completed her Bachelor’s degree in the field of management at the School of Economics and Business of University of Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and received the Golden Badge of the University of Sarajevo for her accomplishments.
Ema then completed her Master’s degree in Economics at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). Her Master’s thesis explored the link between (un)employment, income and ethnic tensions and was titled “The link between ethnic tensions and unemployment in multiethnic countries: The case of Bosnia and Herzegovina”.
At the beginning of 2018, Ema has received the Preseren Award of the Faculty of Economics of University of Ljubljana for her Master’s thesis. Ema has attended several other notable educational programmes, such as the International Summer School in Human Rights at University of Oslo (Norway) in 2014. So far, Ema has written and published two papers that covered two distinct topics: “Socialism and Marxian economics: An overview” and “The link between globalization and gender equality”.
Currently, Ema is surveying the literature. Generally exporting and innovation are treated as separate activities. Only a small portion of the literature recognises that the link between the two exists and explores the link between exporting and innovation (i.e. how exporting influences innovation and vice versa). Furthermore, public policies aimed at promoting exporting and innovation are directed towards just one of the activities. Numerous studies have evaluated the effects of such policies.
The research will examine the links between exporting and innovation. The research will explore how exporting and innovation affect firm performance, both when undertaken separately and jointly. Furthermore, it will analyse the impact of public policy support on exporting and innovation activities.
Finally, based on the all of the previously stated, the research will examine the implications of findings for policy and institutional design. The focus of this examination will be to explore whether programmes for firms aimed at supporting exporting and/or innovation activities should be designed and implemented jointly or separately.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key players in achieving sustainability. In the EU-27, 99% of companies are SMEs (with 250 or fewer employees) and they employ two thirds of European workers (EU, 2017). An individual SME may have small social, environmental and financial impact; collectively SMEs have a great impact. More than 70% of all pollution can be attributed to SMEs.
Graph showing the number of SMEs as a percentage of the total number of enterprises in EU countries
SMEs can benefit from sustainability by:
Strengthening relationships with stakeholders.
Demonstrating transparency.
Enhancing business value and
Securing their right from society to operate.
Achieving continuous improvement and innovation.
Attracting long term capital.
Strengthening risk awareness and management.
Improving regulatory compliance (e.g. greenhouse gas emission data).
Reducing the burden of environmental fines and taxation.
However, SMEs lack the knowledge regarding sustainability problems (i.e. what is sustainability, which process to follow, what are the potential benefits, etc.). Existing frameworks, standards and protocols to assist companies in adopting and implementing the sustainability practices are complex, especially for SMEs, since they are designed as “one size fits all” with large enterprises in mind. SMEs’ staff do not have the experience or tools to address sustainable issues and need to be educated and trained about sustainability principles if they are to take a proactive approach toward sustainability.
Report ASAP Project (Adoption of Sustainable Accounting Practices for Reporting), aims to help small and medium size business report on their sustainability by providing the necessary training and tools to adopt sustainable accounting and reporting practices in a cost-effective way. This project will provide the necessary training and tools for SMEs staff in six (6) countries: UK, Spain, Italy, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Greece.
This project will develop a training course and an online tool, where SMEs can discover the most relevant sustainability reporting practices for them. Help us define the features and content of this tool by filling the online questionnaire available at https://report-asapproject.eu/.
If you would like to be invited to the training please remember to tick the relevant box at the end of the questionnaire. The outcome of this study will be available online as well. Feel free to send us any additional comment/question to the project leader Dr Souad Moufty at: souad.moufty@staffs.ac.uk.
Environmental degradation has featured widely of late in the news channels.
Following the scandal over auto-manufacturers ‘fixing’ of emission tests we have had widespread reporting on deterioration of air quality around our major cities associated with particulate concentrations associated with the large number of diesel powered vehicles we were all encouraged to purchase. Although diesel vehicles have certainly taken the brunt of adverse publicity – resulting in a very significant drop in purchase of both new and second-hand diesel-powered vehicles we must take note that their petrol-powered cousins are no angels. They might not emit harmful particulates, but they are very capable of emitting a noxious cocktail of other harmful agents which accumulate in the atmosphere with potential for adverse impact to health. Just this last week we have seen headlines posting the rise in incidence of lung cancer in non-smokers, overtaking other forms of the disease for the first time – where cigarette tobacco was always previously posted as a primary causal attribute.
More recently we have also been inundated with the threat of plastic contamination. We are advised that of the c.15bn tonnes produced, mostly used in such as disposable products and packaging that despite our attempts to reduce consumption of plastic bags and our increasing attempt to sort and therefore recycle – we in fact learn that very little, perhaps as little as 5% is actually recycled due to contamination. Not all plastics are the same – there are over 50 different types. Capacity to recycle is still wholly insufficient. We still generate c.300 million tonnes/annum where most ends in land-fill and the oceans. Plastic waste now appears to have infiltrated every corner of the planet from our beaches, where school children in the Scottish island are busily engaged in tidying up. One pupil produced a crisp packet of a vintage not used for c.20 years! We know the oceans have become increasingly contaminated with micro-size plastic fragments. They have infiltrated the food chain in which we place so much reliance as the world population increases. The arctic region has now been highlighted as contaminated as has the deepest reaches of the oceans.
Another consideration is that of shipping – a key facilitator of world-wide logistics and supply chain operations without which the global economy would slow or stall. A vast quantity of waste products generated by the immense heavy oil powered engines in such vessels inevitably finds its way not to what often prove to be expensive collection and recycling facilities but inevitably into our oceans. Slowly but surely the oceans around the world are showing signs of increased stress.
And so it goes on. Intensive agricultural techniques & practice over many years has increasingly saturated soils with harmful nitrate compounds which then seep into the water table. We even hear of the vast amount of debris floating in orbit around our planet which take centuries to degrade or at best plummet at some point back to earth.
The challenge is inevitably complex and hence so are the potential solutions. The relentless adoption of free market economic policy around the world is in direct conflict with efforts to protect and sustain our environment and planet. New economies such as those of China & India seek to take their place at the top table and hence exacerbate the challenge. In 2010 it was estimated that over 30bn tonnes of Co2 or greenhouse gas was added to the atmosphere. By 2020 it is estimated that Co2 emissions since the start of the century will have surpassed those of the entire previous century and it is still increasing despite the rhetoric. We have now reached Co2 emissions of c.40bn tonnes/annum. In 2014 the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) stated that in order to reverse this trend our entire reliance on fossil fuels may need to cease by 2100 otherwise we could experience irreversible climate change such as sea-level rises of over 1m coupled with melting of the ice caps and ocean acidification affecting the food chain, crop failure affecting c.3 billion people, catastrophic extinction events and rising temperatures. The highest recorded temperature ever recorded was reported in Death Valley (appropriately named) – a staggering 57.6 degrees C on 10.07.13. We are also witnessing a hitherto unprecedented increase in world population where having reached c. 1bn around 1800 – just over 200 years ago we have grown to a staggering 7.5bn today adding the last 1bn in just over 10 years. We are on course for c.9-10bn by the middle of this century.
An EU survey conducted throughout member states recently was aimed at determining general awareness of what were perceived to be the top 10 global challenges. The survey revealed that a significant proportion simply did not know or have a view. What it did reveal however was that the top concerns were climate change, poverty and lack of food & water.
Despite our knowledge, experience and advanced technology, evidence would suggest we have not advanced very far in addressing these challenges.
On the 100th anniversary of the Representation of the People Act, which gave women in the UK the right to vote for the first time, many questioned why women’s rights haven’t progressed further over the last century. Women still earn less than men across the board and are the subject of sexual discrimination and widespread industry assault – so is the key to equality ensuring more women are employed at the top? The Representation of the People Act added 8.5 million women to the electoral roll but only those over 30 who owned property or were graduates were included. The Act also gave the vote to 5.6 million more men after their voting age was lowered to 21, and the property qualification abolished resulting in the general election in December 1918 consulting an electorate three times the size of the one before it.
Yet progress for women has often felt painfully slow. When a 32-year-old, pregnant Harriet Harman was elected in 1982 there were still only 19 female MPs. The 2017 election was the first time more than 200 women were elected, 208 out of 650 seats.
Beyond the UK, there are female leaders dotted across the globe, and ‘dotted’ remains exactly what they are. There are currently only 28 female heads of state out of 146 world nations, most of which have never had a female leader. And while having a woman in charge doesn’t necessarily make a party’s policies more feminist, it sends a hugely important message to the next generation of women.
The issue of equal pay was brought to our attention by the media in October last year when it was revealed that men working for the BBC earn an average of 9.3% more than women. According to Director General Tony Hall this is more favourable than many organisations which average 18%.
What followed was a widespread campaign, promoting the fact that male presenters were willing to take a pay cut to bring them in line with their female colleagues.
In January, the boss of Luton-based airline EasyJet announced he is taking a pay cut to match the salary of his female predecessor. His salary of £740,000 will now be reduced to £706,000. Furthermore, it was recently revealed women’s hourly pay rates are 52% lower than the men at the airline.
In the latest research from The Chartered Management Institute more than four in five (85%) of women report that they have witnessed gender-discriminatory acts at work.
The Blueprint for Balance: time to fix the broken windows report, which surveyed 856 managers, found that the majority of organisations are still struggling to make a meaningful difference to achieving a gender-balanced workplace.
Worryingly, according to CMI’s new report, only 19% of junior and middle managers believe their senior leaders are committed to the target of gender balance in their organisations – this despite a recent study by management consultants McKinsey showing that the most gender-diverse businesses are 21% more likely to financially outperform their peers.
The new CMI research also found that, despite the introduction of new pay transparency reporting regulations in April 2017, only 8% of managers know the size of their organisation’s gender pay gap.
Furthermore, more than two in five surveyed claim that their organisation does not have a gender pay gap, even though the research found the average difference in pay between male and female managers to be 27%.
Yes, female leaders have worked hard to smash many a glass ceiling and indeed fix the broken windows, but there still appears to be a long way to go. Here’s hoping the next 100 years address the balance.
If you’re anything like me, you would have read enough tips on CV building to write your own novel. But what do we really learn? How do we know that the document we’ve just spent four hours putting together is even going to get a second look from our dream company? We don’t. But if we do know what tools are available to build a great CV, maybe we’d one step closer to the dream.
Example of Canva Free Resume Template
Gone are the days that a CV format consists of a black and white document with Times New Roman font and maybe the odd line of bold. Employers want to get a glimpse of you from the first few seconds. So, my first tip, do not be afraid to be yourself and make the use of digital tools that are available.
Firstly, ask yourself which industry you are trying to enter, this is key to choosing the type of design for your CV as it has to be relevant. If you’re looking to build something a little more interesting that gives you the freedom to show some of your personality through colour and images, try Canva, a free online design tool. This has a range of templates with suggestions of content and layout, but also allows you to amend any settings to your personal taste.
On the other hand, you may be looking for a professional CV with a moving edge. Video CV’s are increasingly common particularly in the creative and also sporting sectors due to the nature of the roles. Software such as Windows Movie Maker, Apple iMovie or something more sophisticated like Adobe Premier Pro are great for editing your own footage.
Credit: powtoon.com
Finally, and this is exciting, how about creating your own animated video of a day in the life of you? Powtoon is a free online tool that allows you to create a cartoon character and tell a story of your education, experiences and skills through video. Powtoon is YouTube certified and has recently become partnered with HubSpot, meaning it’s great not only for personal development but for work related projects too. It is a simple to use, flexible tool that allows you to create approachable content and particularly for a CV, include a visualisation of a persons skills and knowledge.
A CV doesn’t have to be a chore, take the opportunity that digital has given us to explore creative ways to present yourself as a professional.
It is no secret that the landscape of marketing is changing, with a huge shift in activity from traditional methods to digital marketing methods. Machine Learning is at the absolute forefront of this change, and is tipped to be the key to successful business online.
What is Machine Learning?
Machine Learning (ML) is closely related to Artificial Intelligence (AI), a topic of discussion that is prevalent not only in marketing, but as a cultural issue. ML is the application of AI to systems, allowing them to learn from experience. This involves complex algorithm’s that allow a machine to use data to produce predicted outputs.
In marketing terms, this means that a program can gather relevant information, analyse it, and give a specific output, whether that is a prediction or action. This is an exciting prospect for businesses as it can lead to increased efficiency and decreased costs.
So, how can you, as an organisation, utilise machine learning?
Utilising Big Data –
Digital is growing rapidly, and is fuelled by the amount of data available online, labelled as ‘Big Data’. IBM reported in 2013 that 90% of the world’s data had been produced in the last 2 years. Although this number may seem overwhelming, analysing it is HUGE business, with International Data Corporation predicting it to reach a value of $203 billion in 2020.
With this mass of data, analyst’s need the help of machines if they wish to be able to analyse it fully. Data Analytic programs allow this to an extent, but ML programs, such as Torch, have the ability to spot hidden correlations and patterns in this data, which can be used strategically.
Chat bots –
Creating a dialogue with customers is crucial to businesses online, and one way to do this effectively is to use chat bots. Chat bots are becoming increasingly popular, and with good reason. Using a chat bot, a customer can open a dialogue to, for example, buy a coat. In this example, a customer would message the business through a messaging app such as Facebook Messenger, and the bot would then reply. The customer would then tell the bot what style/colour of coat it desires, and the bot would provide you with options matching your needs.
As a business, it allows you to communicate with huge numbers of customers on an individual basis, without the need for humans for each customer. This not only saves costs, but is a method that is increasingly preferred by customers, especially millennials. Although Chat bots are already beginning to revolutionise customer service, it is important to realise that the tool is still in its infancy, and so inevitably as technology advances, more and more opportunities concerning them will arise.
Recruitment –
Another way ML can improve your business activities involves recruitment. This is no more apparent than in ML tools used by companies like Zoho, such as Spark, which allows you to flip the equation in job searching – instead of candidates giving information and a list of vacancies being provided, Zoho uses information regarding the vacancy provided by the business, and supplies a list of candidates that best fit the role.
This can benefit your business because it ensures your prospective employees possess the traits you are seeking.
Content Management –
With the swathe of content available to consumer’s, it is only natural that it becomes difficult for them to find the content they want to see. Businesses can address this problem through machine learning. By using a machine learning platform, businesses can use the data from previous content consumers have interacted with to predict other content that would be liked, and to ultimately produce content that resonates with their consumer’s. One such example of this is Pinterest. Pinterest use the previous images that their users have ‘pinned’ to suggest other images and content that users would like to see.
This is Just the Start!
The benefits listed above should make it clear that ML has immense potential for business and marketing. It is now being used by giant companies, such as Google and Amazon, but there is no reason smaller companies could use it with just as much benefit. As the technology behind this area grows, organisations will be able to interact with and influence consumers like never before. Make sure you aren’t left behind.
Does your business use machine learning? How does it benefit you? What other benefits are available to businesses through this platform? Please share your opinion below.
Instagram Stories is a big deal and they’re not going away. Daily viewers of Instagram Stories surpassed daily SnapChat viewers just one year after launch, and the growth isn’t stopping.
Instagram Stories was likely the biggest single change in the Instagram UX, and its marketing implications are huge.
A huge deal with Instagram Stories is this: accounts with over 10,000 followers can now add a link within the feature. Considering the fact that the only other place you can put a link on Instagram is just the one buried on your profile page, this is a huge deal, as it multiplies buying or inquiry opportunities by orders of magnitude.
Instagram Stories in particular will be relevant from a marketing perspective because, compared to other transitory video platforms, Instagram metrics are eminently trackable.
A final note on Instagram Stories: Their foundation is social media engagement gold. Video drastically outperforms all other forms of content on every test.
2. Influencer Marketing Makes Major Contributions to Social Media Engagement
Influencer marketing is big business — a billion dollar industry by some counts. There is an exhaustive list of micro-celebrities who earn six figure incomes. And this isn’t a fluke. Influencer marketing is uniquely keyed to exploit certain facts about a growing number of buyers.
As Millennials advance their careers, and Generation Z starts theirs, an enormous population’s purchasing power is increasing swiftly. These two groups — who, combined, literally comprise most of the world’s population — are uniquely influenced by this marketing method.
3. Generation Z to Decide Social Media Trends
We’ve mentioned Generation Z in both of the previous topics for good reason.
RetailDive had this to say about Generation Z and their associated social media trends:
“Gen Z is two- to three times more likely to be influenced by social media than by sales or discounts — the only generation to value social media over price when it comes to making purchase decisions…”
Furthermore, 81% report watching at least one hour of online video per day, or more, according to a study by Fluent, covered by AdWeek. Combine these facts and realize that droves of Generation Z will graduate college and/or start careers next year, and you start to see the powder keg.
4. Messaging Platforms Make Companies Accessible
What do you know about WeChat? They’re a wee little Chinese messaging company . . . errr, one that’s looking to cross 1 billion users this quarter. WeChat and WhatsApp are absolutely ubiquitous across either ocean, reaching across many different functions to dominate social media, direct messaging, and even purchasing and commerce.
Every year more and more buyers are Millennials and Gen Z, and fewer and fewer are older. In case you’re not aware of these people’s overwhelming preferences when it comes to talking to a company, we’ll illustrate in their native language:
5. Live Streaming Explodes
Live streaming isn’t about live streaming. At least not in the way we’re going to be talking about it. You’re going to see a lot more of it in 2018, and the people who do it well will be fully with the times and accelerating. Its prevalence will increase because it works.
But there’s something more at work here.
It’s actually about technology. We get better phones every year. Does that mean that we’re running the same apps better? Sometimes. But once the technological baseline of the average user has clearly moved up a notch, it becomes about making more robust apps that do more and fully take advantage of that new technology.
The smartphones of today are better than what we used to have by orders of magnitude. Furthermore, our data speeds are better, and are poised to make yet another insane leap in the next few years when 5G becomes the standard.
Live streaming is a medium or implementation of social technology that’s uniquely positioned to take advantage of hardware improvements for the next several years. The resolution of an image the size of a phone screen can only get so good before you have to zoom in to see a difference.
But better video processing across the board means all devices involved can handle more streaming at a better quality across more channels at the same time. This is such a huge change that it’s possibly unclear that anyone is even capable of fully understanding the ramifications.
6. Twitter is Going to Change
And they themselves might not even know how just yet.
Twitter has been slowly circling the drain, in some respects, for a long time now. 2017 pulled no punches with the social network, either. Twitter needs to make some big changes to stay relevant, as its growth is the slowest of all the major social media platforms.
7. Online Hangouts Become the Norm
Online hangouts go hand-in-hand with the live streaming trend, and with Generation Z. Consider Houseparty — an app for multiple friends to essentially FaceTime with each other in a group setting.
Houseparty made quite a wave in 2017 with rapid growth, and hit its stride well enough to inspire copycats, including perhaps an effort on the way coming from (no surprise here) Facebook.
The online hangouts trend is also going to intersect with VR. Sure, everyone promised everything this year with VR and AR, and all that ultimately came of it was two weeks of Pokemon GO.
But this year actually has the potential to be different. Many promising programs have another year of beta testing still left under their belts, but the technologies are improving in exciting ways. Once again, Facebook is at the epicentre, with Facebook Spaces.
We’re likely going to see companies revisit this in a more significant or longer-lasting way, and definitely more proactive than reactive.
As leveraging social media outlets for marketing first took flight, some were dubious of their staying power. The years since have changed sceptic’s into believers, and what’s on the forefront will clearly and easily amplify the channels’ relevance even further.
2018 is here… but were you prepared?
2018 social media trends predict that time on social media platforms will increase. This means you will need to improve your online presence in the year to come.
Anyone who’s ever tried to outsource their Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts knows that when you ask an SEO expert how long this will take, the answer is always ‘it depends’.
It depends on thousands of factors and there is no exact formula or ‘one size fits all’ approach. However, some factors that we do know play a key role:
Domain Authority;
Keyword Competition;
Content Quality.
And also it seems AGE.
So I hear you ask…
Does Page Age Make A Difference To Google Rank Position?
So, what strategies can you employ to speed that process up?
Competition Analysis
It sounds obvious, but many people still don’t do it – analyse what your successful competitors are doing!
Ask questions like:
What are they doing?
How are they doing it?
Can you copy/mimic or even improve on their efforts?
Use a strategy that works, and if you can, improve it.
Use a strategy that works; make sure that you constantly review it to ensure you are always using the most effective strategy to make your website rank higher.
To help you along the way, you may need a few tools:
BuzzSumo can tell you what content on your competitor’s websites are getting shared the most (shares are good to increase social signals).
Moz’s Open Site Explorer allows you to see everything from domain & page authority to inbound links and root domains;
Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls websites’ links, images, Clinical Classifications Software (CSS), script and apps to evaluate onsite SEO.
Which leads us to…
On-Page Optimisation
So, after you’ve done your competitor analysis, the first thing you should do is optimise your website for on-page elements.
You should include things like:
Relevant content to the subject;
Keyword optimization;
HTML Tags;
Images:
Inbound & Outbound links.
The website plugin by Yoast is a great tool to help you get this right. It gives you tips and suggestions on how to improve your on-page SEO; for example:
Next…
Generate Backlinks
When you’ve got your on-page elements correct, you are essentially telling Google ‘this is what we do’; however, in order to rank well, you also need independent online sources to ‘recommend you’; this is easily achieved by generating backlinks to your content/website.
However, any old backlink won’t do. You must get backlinks from high domain ranking websites. Quality is better than quantity.
A great link building strategy is to create an infographic on your subject (Venngage is a great tool for this) and send to other audiences who might be interested and willing to share it with their audience. Once they share it, voila, you have a free backlink.
Next on the agenda…
Google Snippets
Google snippets are designed to answer your search questions at the top of a Google page. You will recognise them as looking something like this:
Known as “position zero”, you can gain the top spot on Google, even if your linked content isn’t at the top of the rankings itself.
The way to achieve a ‘Rich Snippet’ is by creating content which answers a question, such as ‘how to make a pancake?’.
In order to achieve this top position, your content subtitle should be the question that needs asking and the next paragraph should answer that question precisely.
Bear in mind that Google reads your content like a robot which means you need to organise your content logically; if you do, you might even get your own snippet. If you don’t, forget about ranking in position zero.
And finally, something which goes without saying…
Don’t Forget Social Media For SEO
Some people will tell you that social media has nothing to do with SEO.
As we know, Google takes into account thousands of pieces of information in order to rank your website. When someone searches for a topic within your subject area, search engines do consider social media in rankings.
In particular, they look at:
How active your social media accounts are;
How up to date they are;
How many shares your website gets.
It has also been proven that a strong presence on social media has a positive correlation with better website rankings.
SEO is sometimes over complicated. It’s all a matter of knowing what strategy to employ, putting in the hours and being patient.
As we know, 95% of websites/content can take up to 12 months to rank well in Google, however, if you get it all right, you may just find yourself ranking in a day:
In order for the consumer to have an overall positive experience, it is strongly recommended that your project is designed to be inclusive. If the right accessibility isn’t in place, it could exclude consumers who may struggle or even be unable to interact with the project. The information that will be covered in this blog series can be applied to digital projects ranging from websites to computer games.
Visual Colours
Visual: Colours and shapes
Visual aspects are crucial in any digital project, the appearance of your content is the first thing most consumers see, and influences how they will interact with it.
Using colour schemes/overlays
Colour-orientated design
This can be a tricky one, the use of colours can aid the experience for some consumers, it can however also hinder others if substitutional elements aren’t implemented.
Colour Schemes/overlays
Let’s start with how colour can aid experience, consumers with conditions such as Dyslexia and/or Irlen Syndrome can struggle to read against certain contrast and colours, due to struggles including the processing of spectral light, which influences how they process visual information; the use of coloured overlays to tint colours in front/behind the text can ease readability for them.
There is software that can help them with this online such as ColorVeil and nOverlay, although other platforms would benefit from access to alternative text colour schemes.
Alternate text colour schemes refer to the colour of the text, and the background behind it, especially in sections containing large bodies of text, or requiring quick reference during interaction. Providing options for the consumer to alter them provides an opportunity to not only tailor the experience to their needs, but also make it their own.
Colour schemes to take into consideration are shown in the image below
Text-Comparison on different colour backgrounds
Taking font style and size into consideration can also aid this experience, Sans-Serif style fonts tend to be more comfortable to read, an extensive list of similar/other fonts to consider can be found at Dyslexic.com.
Communicating through shapes
If you rely on only colours to communicate functionality or change to consumers, it will be inaccessible to anyone who has a form of colour-blindness. Colour-blindness is a colour vision deficiency that affects how many colours a person can see in general; average colour vision is formed by three colour receptors in our retinas that process red, green, and blue, whereas a colourblind person will lack one or even all of them. The image below makes an accurate comparison of how people with various conditions perceive colours through their vision.
This is why using various shapes can also help communicate your design, for example: how iOS Mail uses circles and Flag symbols to identify content you may wish to check, or how Twitter “fills” the Like/Love symbol to indicate you have Liked/Loved a post (see example below).
Following these steps in your project design will take it one step further to becoming an inclusive experience for consumers. Next time, we will be looking at how to communicate information that can’t always be seen or heard.
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