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Re: Mobile Accessibility Testing Tools

for

From: Henny Swan
Date: Mar 16, 2012 3:42AM

Hi Pooja,

Including this in user testing with PWDs certainly wont hurt. Where testing
day to day may be limited to a small set of devices I see user testing as
an opportunity to open it up because at the end of the day we don't know
how content is being accessed once it goes live. Finding people who use it
and are available for testing may or may not be easy however.

I see a D-pad and trackball as giving insight into content order and how
logical it is (as well as testing visible focus). This can also be tested
with touch by using iOS Web Rotor but what it may do however is reveal
differences and nuances between using touch/gestures, d-pads and
trackballs. All of which is a bit of an unknown at the moment.

For our mobile testing we have a core set of devices that we MUST test on
and another set that we SHOULD test on. The core devices are ones that we
feel are most commonly used (based on popular devices with accessibility
support, location in the world, customer feedback and devices already
featured in overall mobile test plans etc). The ones we should test on are
edge cases: devices gaining popularity, new on the market or losing
popularity etc. We also have a smaller subset of devices used in day to day
testing by devs and QA and a wider set of devices recommended in user
testing (baring in mind it's not always easy to find a user). Of course all
this is further complicated by mobile browsers and what support they have
for accessibility but that's a whole different discussion.

Stephanie Rieger wrote a useful post on how to select devices:
http://stephanierieger.com/strategies-for-choosing-test-devices/ and I
wrote one around setting up a mobile accessibility strategy
http://www.iheni.com/getting-to-grips-with-a-mobile-accessibility-strategy/which
covers choosing devices to test on.

Regards, Henny

On 14 March 2012 04:02, Pooja Nahata < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> All,
>
>
>
> In a tricky situation while putting together a list of tools for assessing
> mobile accessibility J
>
>
>
> Apart from the standard package of tools that we recommend (screen reader,
> keyboard, validators, etc ) client is pushing to test with *D-pad and
> Trackball* for their mobile web/app (iOS & Android). I m not sure if these
> would add any value to the existing set of tool that we use. But would it
> might make sense to have the same while conducting usability testing with
> PWDs?
>
>
>
> I looked up on the internet to find some reference if these tools would add
> value - can anyone help me in understanding the same?
>
> --
> Regards
> Pooja Nahata
> Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> Hand Phone: +919820725102
> LinkedIn: http://in.linkedin.com/in/poojanahata
> Twitter: http://twitter.com/Pooja_Nahata
>