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Testing paper prototypes with low-vision users

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From: Angela Colter
Date: Apr 9, 2009 7:55AM

I'm working on a web site redesign project for an organization whose primary
audience is low-vision users and their caregivers. One of the usability
research activities we're considering is user testing with paper prototypes
to try to get some user feedback on the visual design prior to coding it.

The reason we're considering this is to identify visual design concepts that
aren't worth pursuing, given the target audience. Now, this will probably
work just fine with sighted users, those who don't use assistive technology,
and those who use screen magnifiers (assuming that the "paper prototypes"
are static images presented on-screen). But it won't work for people who
increase the text size in their browser or who use a screen reader.

Have any of you ever done early-stage (in other words, static images only,
no code) testing with this audience? Any experiences or advice you'd like to
share? Is it worth testing at this phase, or should we wait until we've got
code?

Thanks,

Angela

--
Angela Colter

twitter.com/angelacolter
215-921-6677 (home)
443-803-8211 (cell)