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Re: System Usability Scale with Blind Users

for

From: Whitney Quesenbery
Date: Sep 8, 2015 9:49PM

The System Usability Scale is a simple 10-question scale for measuring
perceptions of usability. It's value is that it has been widely used over
many years, and validated by several different usability researchers,
including Jeff Sauro (Measuring Usability).

It poses statements about the use of a system (website, application, app,
etc) and asks the user to rate their agreement or disagreement with the
statement on a 5-point scale and uses that to produce an overall score.

It is technology neutral. It is not specific to any user group or any
disability/AT.

It can be used to compare SUS results by any demographic or usage
characteristic, but is more commonly aggregated for an entire product. It
would be useful to begin to gather SUS scores from a wider audience - as
anyone using it is free to do.

A few articles on the SUS from Jeff Sauro (and James Lewis)
http://uxpamagazine.org/sustified/
https://www.measuringu.com/blog/10-things-SUS.php
http://www.measuringu.com/sus.php
https://www.measuringu.com/topics/SUS (list of articles on the topic)It is
technology neutral

On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 9:28 PM Ron < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:

> I would be concerned about any scale that only looks at only one subset of
> those with disability. This has been a pressing problem for a number of
> years in the community.
>
> Yes we need to deal with the issues of sensory disability, but I find much
> more problematic the issues of alternative input, in particular Voice
> Recognition tech.
>
> We have been seeing for a number of years products that are accessible with
> JAWS, the dominant product in the Screen Reader market. The problem is
> these products fail more often than not in pan-disability evaluation. In
> addition, they as a rule fail miserably in an accessibility and usability
> evaluation.
>
> Just some food for though.
>
> On Wednesday, September 2, 2015, Amelia Dickerson <
> <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > My question has 2 parts:
> > 1. Has anyone used or seen anyone else use the System Usability Scale
> >
> >
> http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/system-usability-scale.html
> > with blind/VI users when testing for accessibility/usability? Just
> > from a logical perspective, it seems like it would be just as valid
> > and reliable with a blind/VI user as with any other user-- it asks
> > about things like if you would want to use this system often and if
> > you are confident with it and if you felt able to figure it out
> > without training. At the same time, you aren't really supposed to
> > assume a tool is valid and reliable in a population where it hasn't
> > been tested. As a general rule, blind/VI users are probably going to
> > wind up with lower scores on usability than other users.
> >
> > 2. Is there another tool you use or have seen other people use to give
> > a general number on usability or accessibility when evaluating? We
> > are using WCAG guidelines and providing a lot of specifics. We also
> > try to offer a summary at the beginning. For the most part though, we
> > are communicating with people who know very little about
> > accessibility-- probably a bit more about general usability- so we are
> > trying to communicate in ways that make sense to them. Providing a
> > number might give a reader just one more way to try and relate to what
> > our reports say. A list of 20 problems can mean different things, but
> > having a score of 50 versus 80 is something that might help
> > communicate significance and impact and what it all winds up looking
> > like.
> > Thanks,
> > Amelia
> > > > > > > > > >
> > > > >