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Seasons Greetings!
We hope you are keeping cozy this time of year! Our fall/winter newsletter is packed with thrilling updates. Dive in to discover what we've been up to lately!
Team Member Spotlight:
Yinyu Liang
"I am deeply passionate about my role in actively engaging with diverse communities to ensure that technology solutions are not only comprehensive but also genuinely inclusive, catering to the needs of everyone."
Our Community Coordinator, Yinyu, is staying with our team for the rest of 2023. We connected with Yinyu through CIWA's Job Placement Program.
As a recent newcomer with a professional background in International Studies, coupled with diverse industry experience and a rich cultural understanding derived from extensive world travels, Yinyu is deeply committed to nurturing inclusivity within our society.
In her capacity as a Community Coordinator, Yinyu actively engages with diverse communities, striving to understand their unique needs and aspirations. She forges partnerships with local organizations to foster collaborative relationships, advocates for and applies user-centric design principles in community initiatives, and establishes mechanisms for ongoing feedback from the community.
🍁 Community Updates and Exciting Initiatives ❄️
🍎 IncluCity has started reaching out through Fresh Routes, a mobile grocery store delivering produce and essentials to Calgary neighbourhoods. 🥬
We visited Fresh Routes Sunalta and Hillhurst in September, and starting from this November, every first Monday of the month, we'll be at the Hillhurst location seeking testers and volunteers (with a brief hiatus over the winter months). Our aim is to recruit testers and volunteers, distribute flyers, and offer information about IncluCity's mission and activities.
🎉 Our October appreciation event was a hit! During the event, we showcased updated statistics on testers and volunteers, available for viewing in the slides provided here.
Uriel's mini-workshop garnered enthusiastic feedback from attendees. We hope that everyone gained valuable insights into inclusive usability testing and learned more about IncluCity as a whole!
📊 IncluCity is looking for a Finance & Accounting Volunteer! 💼 Are you passionate about budgeting, financial reporting, and strategic thinking? We invite you to join our team, and no prior experience is required! Your role will have a significant impact, contributing to our financial health and helping us achieve our mission. Responsibilities include budgeting, financial reporting, strategic thinking, cashflow management, and financial planning. Your commitment can be as flexible as ~5 per week.
Email Stephen to get involved!
🌆 Partner Spotlight: Youthful Cities 🏙️
Celebrating a Collaborative Milestone!
IncluCity is thrilled to team up with Youthful Cities! As part of this dynamic collaboration, IncluCity is glad to introduce Youthful Cities' groundbreaking youth workforce development project spanning 8 cities across Canada. In partnership with the Tamarack Institute and the Government of Canada, they're launching a program aimed at enhancing youth skills development and bolstering workforce readiness.
They are gathering valuable insights through the following survey, where everyone has the chance to make a significant impact, nurturing the growth of Canada's youth workforce!
Are you a young person (between 16 and 29 years old) currently residing in Canada? If you’ve ever felt anxious about finding a job, lacking the necessary skills, or dealing with a lack of support from your city, this 15-minute survey is an opportunity for you to speak up and create change! Data collected will be shared openly (and anonymously) to help shape employer practices in Canada and will inform youth-led solutions to employment barriers at our upcoming summit.
Fill out the survey on youth workforce development by December 6th, 2023:
🍁 Ongoing & Complete Projects in 2023 ❄️
A list of projects we've worked on this year. There are a few more projects we're still working on that we're excited to share with you in our next newsletter in 2024 once they're done.
MacEwan University’s Department of Design have partnered with IncluCity to help ensure that the perspectives of diverse groups inform the design of student projects. The project includes user testing with diverse participants to identify ways to make the design of student project more accessible and inclusive, helping to improve future design and functionality of services used by our community.
IncluCity and City of Calgary are working on a pilot project to show the importance of testing digital services with a diverse group.
We’ve completed testing and will be sharing the community impacts of this test in 2024.
Thank you to the 40 testers who provided there feedback in a usability test, and the many others that showed interest and applied to be testers.
Platform Calgary is the home for innovation in Calgary. IncluCity facilited user tests throughout the redesign of the website. Testers had the opportunity to provide feedback on the initial figma design of the website and the beta site before it was released. You can check out their shinny new website here: platformcalgary.com
THEBRDGE.com is your one-stop-shop for delicious home-cooked meals prepared by local food vendors and private chefs. We conducted a test to see what users thought of the overall food ordering process. Changes were made to the platform faster then we could order food.
Shift! The Project to end Domestic Violence
IncluCity located parents of teens to participate in a test conducted by Shift to get feedback for their learning programs.
🍁 Current IncluCity Statistics ❄️
Interested in learning more about how IncluCity can help improve
the reach and accessibility of your company solutions?
New on the blog
Usability Moment
Apple shared updates about new accessibility features for iOS 17. These include Assistive Access, a simpler visual interface for easier navigation; Live Speech, a helpful text-to-speech tool; and Personal Voice, which supports individuals who might face challenges with speaking.
Find out about new updates in Apple's announcement and explore extra product features on Apple's accessibility page.
Google is making improvements to lots of features that help everyone. Some cool updates are Chrome's ability to catch URL mistakes and suggest websites, Live Caption for real-time text on sound, Lookout Image Question & Answer (Q&A) Mode for clearer descriptions and recognizing objects, and Google Maps' "Accessible Places" option, which is now automatically on. To find out more, check out the details in Google’s press release and explore additional product features on Google’s accessibility page.