Accessibility User Testing
Unique Skillset Required
Overview
Successful user testing with people with a disability requires a combination of knowledge and experience covering the WCAG guidelines, assistive technologies (e.g. screen readers, screen magnifiers, etc) and assistive strategies for users with a wide variety of disabilities (i.e. how people with different abilities use their assistive technology).
Other Factors
Our consultants possess the unique skillset to be able to analyse when a user encounters a problem and discern if that issue is an accessibility issue with the website or is due to other factors, such as:
A limitation with the assistive technology
A user can encounter issues as a result of a limitation of their assistive technology (e.g. JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, etc). For example, different versions of JAWS support and handle certain web elements, features and technologies in different ways. Fixing an issue for one version of a particular screen reader may cause issues for another.
Technology and version limitations
Similar to the above factor, a user may be testing the website with a device (e.g. iPhone, iPad), browser or platform that has certain accessibility limitations, dependencies or constraints.
A user's assistive technology proficiency level
The proficiency and ability of the individual person to use their assistive technology or device can play a large role in user testing feedback.
Our consultants are able to identify if a user is having a particular issue because of the website or due to a lack of experience using their software and device e.g. VoiceOver on an iPhone. Conversely, we can spot if a ‘power user’ is circumnavigating issues due to their advanced technical level.
Varying assistive strategies
An assistive strategy is the way in which individual users use their assistive technology to access a website. For example, screen reader users can navigate a webpage in a multitude of different ways. Some users prefer to navigate by headings, others by links, or even by page regions.
Our consultants are familiar with the various strategies and ways in which people interact with websites using their adaptive software.
User's personal preference
A user's personal preference plays a role in all user testing. This is exasperated with accessibility user testing as a recommendation that may assist one user could in fact introduce barriers to other users or entire user groups.
Our consultants have the accessibility experience to adjudge if a recommendation from one user would be of benefit if introduced or whether it would have an adverse knock on effects and cause additional issues elsewhere on the site.
Our Findings
When preparing our user testing session findings, we take into account all of these factors, allowing us to extract any ‘false positives’ and focus on providing practical recommendations that will improve the accessibility of the website for all users.
