Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Designers
My first 'real' interview was published yesterday, for Digital Web Magazine.
My victim was Sarah Horton (thanks Sarah!), author of Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Designers (published in July).
"Digital Web Magazine catches up with Web style maven Sarah Horton on the heels of the publication of her book Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Designers. Find out why Web applications get her goat and how you can put her “access by design” approach into practice for more accessible sites from the get-go."
I enjoyed doing it, but the process was harder work than I thought it would be. The preparation (reading book, preparing questions) was fun to do and I interviewed Sarah via Skype (here's how) to post as a transcript and podcast. Thanks to Mark Baarste who helped me think through some of the questions I would ask.
(I've posted the original mp3 recording of the interview - beware: Sarah's voice is a little faint (didn't get the levels right) but audible, is 30 mb, 57 mins).
What I didn't count on is the work involved in creating a transcript and in editing - fortunately my lovely sister offered to write up the transcript (thanks sis!), but this hours took hours to do. The full transcript (Word) was over 3,700 words in the end. I had to cut this to 2,000 for the final cut. The editing process challenging. I found it tricky to remove copy without changing the meaning, breaking the flow or ridding the questions and answers of their context. But I learnt a lot. Will I do it again? If DWM lets me!