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Re: accessibility without testing?

for

From: Steve Green
Date: Mar 14, 2008 1:20PM

If you don't do user testing and you don't engage accessibility consultants
and you don't spend time with disabled people to learn about their
disabilities, then there is a very significant possibility you're going to
build something that is inaccessible.

The WCAG are a starting point but how close they get you to an accessible
site will vary greatly depending on the content, the functionality and the
technologies you choose to build it. In some cases designing to standards
may be good enough. In other cases it may be totally inadequate. How are you
going to know which it is?

A long list of checkpoints isn't the answer. A lot of the problems users
have are not technical, but cognitive; they can access the content but can't
understand it or can't understand what they need to do. Often this is a 100%
blocker, not 'the last 1%'. With our experience of user testing we can
assess whether users are likely to find a website accessible, but user
testing frequently reveals unexpected issues.

The legislative environment in which you work will influence your approach.
In the UK we have the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA), which applies to
websites. This does not specify that websites must meet any particular level
of technical accessibility (such as WCAG). Instead it is interested only in
actual outcomes i.e. whether people can actually use the website. This is in
direct contrast with Section 508, which was specifically drafted such that a
totally objective technical pass/fail assessment could be made. Although the
DDA is far more subjective, it meets users' needs better than Section 508.

Steve



-----Original Message-----
From: <EMAIL REMOVED>
[mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Keith Parks
Sent: 14 March 2008 15:13
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: Re: [WebAIM] accessibility without testing?


On Mar 13, 2008, at 4:26 PM, John Foliot - Stanford Online Accessibility
Program wrote:

> [snip...]
>
> I realize that for most developers this level of testing is quite
> extensive, and probably beyond reach more often than not. [snip...]
>
> So to summarize, and return to the question initially posed: to truly
> determine accessibility *does* require human testing, but by humans
> who access web content using the various AT tools out there, not by
> web developers buying a piece of software and attempting to replicate
> foreign experiences.

So given all the difficulties and variables in human testing you point out,
doesn't it realistically come down to designing to standards (checked with
automated and manual inspection), combined with proper document information
structure (html mark-up)?

If you do those things, it would seem like you'd be, say, 99% covered. And
to uncover that last 1% of something that may not be accessible in a site,
you'd have to do multiple human tests, with users having various kinds of
disabilities and skill/experience levels, on every page of a site. And in
*my* real world at least, the level of real disabled user testing I might be
able to arrange doesn't seem worth it on a regular basis. (Though I
definitely agree that it's a powerful lesson to sit with a real disabled
user as they experience the Web with a screen reader, or try and navigate a
complex page without a mouse, etc.)

In other words, if you have a long enough list of checkpoints, there
shouldn't be a need for human testing, since nothing short of full,
systematic human testing is going to uncover problems that can't be
uncovered some other way.

******************************
Keith Parks
Graphic Designer/Web Designer
Student Affairs Communications Services
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-7444
(619) 594-1046
mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED>
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/communications

http://kparks.deviantart.com/gallery
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