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Re: Usability vs. Accessibility

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From: Greg Gamble
Date: Mar 22, 2016 3:33PM

Usability ... is the page usable, does it make sense?
Accessibility ... can you access the information on the page, can you read it?

A page can be usable, but not accessible. Everything works on the page, but you can access it ...
A page can be accessible, but not usable. You can read everything on the page, but it doesn't make since ...

That's my take ...

Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf Of Kelly Lupo
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2016 9:55 AM
To: WebAIM Discussion List
Subject: [WebAIM] Usability vs. Accessibility

I did not want to hijack the tabindex thread, so I figured I'd start a new one... It was mentioned at one point that there was more of a usability issue than an accessibility one in one of the examples.

I need to explicitly define the two for an unrelated project, but I find that I am having a hard time doing so without confusing myself (let alone the person reading I imagine!). How do ya'll explain this difference to someone who has little to no experience in web accessibility?

I had started with the analogy of:

- Being directed to a 404 - 'page not found' or having makes the content
inaccessible (thus also unusable),
- Whereas a page in a language you do not speak, and does not provide
pictures or a translation widget, renders the page unusable because you can
access the page - it is just harder to access the content (IE: you need a
translator of some kind).


...And then I got confused by reading other sources which seemed to say the opposite. Affirmation or dissent and correction would be much appreciated!

Thank you in advance,
Kelly