Plan how to gather feedback from users after publishing iterated Images guidance using the experimental tag

[kellylee-gds]

What

Using the experimental tag, make a plan of how we will get feedback from users following publishing iterated Images guidance.

Why

• so we can explain why the experimental tag is being used
• so we know how the guidance is being used in services

Who needs to work on this

Calvin

Who needs to review this

Accessibility expert, Interaction designer

Done when

• Draft experimental message — what are we testing?
• Decide how to implement 'experimental' tag
• Decide on ways users can respond

[calvin-lau-sig7]

We are looking to potentially publish this update with an experimental tag.

This is because we do not know enough about:

• how relevant some of the detailed guidance in the “Avoid images that contain text” section is for service teams
  -- it seems rare for citizen-facing services to use images
  -- In fact, working on this guidance, the team had difficulty finding examples in live services
• how practical the guidance is — we’re unsure how service teams create and source the images they’d include in a service
  -- can they decide on types of images they need (style, file format, etc.) and get it created?
  -- are service teams ever asked to use images they have little creative control over?
  -- how helpful is this guidance in their decision-making process?

Decision needed: decide whether to apply the experimental tag to the entire page or only the accessibility-related sections.

[calvin-lau-sig7]

I've some draft copy and answers the Done Whens of this ticket in the Google doc.

Pasted below, but please refer to the doc for the latest version.

Experimental notification banner

This page is currently experimental because we want to hear feedback on how useful this guidance is for service teams.

Research on this guidance, and/or backlog comment - draft copy

In March 2023, we updated this page to better help service teams use images in their services. In particular, we added a section on how to use images and ensure they’re as accessible as possible — giving advice to teams on how to meet relevant WCAG AA guidelines and even surpass them in line with our accessibility strategy.

To help us validate that this guidance is useful and practical for service teams across government, we want to get more feedback and examples of images from you.

We want to hear about any of these areas:

• how you use images to give information to users
• examples of images used in services
• how you create and choose images to use in your service
• how images are implemented (for frontend performance)

Give us your feedback and examples by posting a comment on the ‘Images’ discussion on GitHub.

Channels to communicate

• ‘Research on this component’ heading on page
• Post on backlog issue
• Email to accessibility experts in government(?)
• Ways users can respond

The backlog issue is probably the best way, especially as responses will likely include screenshots and annotation.

[dav-idc]

Decision needed: decide whether to apply the experimental tag to the entire page or only the accessibility-related sections.

Hey @calvin-lau-sig7! I wouldn't be opposed to having the 'experimental' tag on the whole page at least for a while. I can think of three reasons why:

• we did make a lot of changes across the page (including illustrations guidance)
• it might encourage people to look over other parts of the page and perhaps catch something we missed?
• as far as I know, we only have precedent for an 'experimental' tag on a full page, and not on a portion of a page.

And here are two reasons why just adding it to the relevant section might be good

• it would focus attention on the portion we're really looking for feedback on
• it won't weaken the effect of the other guidance on the page (our other stuff isn't 'experimental')

My proposed option based on this:

• mark the whole page as experimental
• have a callout near the top of the page that links down to the section that explains what feedback we're looking for?

[calvin-lau-sig7]

@ImranH-GDS says it'd be good to do some activity to 'show and tell' some of this work. It'll be useful to:

• Find our audience for this guidance (however will need to carefully communicate scope of some of these edits, as images cover a lot)
• Get feedback on whether it's useful (and answer some of the questions we have!)