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Re: Usability vs. Accessibility

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From: Birkir R. Gunnarsson
Date: Mar 23, 2016 9:22AM

Well said Tim.

The exciting thing about working in accessibility is when you truly
feel you are making a website more usable for everybody.
Sometimes we get lucky enough to work with those who really want a
great user experience for everyone, in which case there is less of a
distinction.
But sometimes you work with people who want to do the minimum possible
to comply with accessibility regulations (and, hey, that is not always
a bad thing, it is a start and beats not caring at all), and then you
have to be more careful about the distinction.

The QA teams usually catch usability issues on websites for the, and I
don't like that phrase" (regular user), so the issues we discover are
more subtle and specific to users with accessibilities
I always report usability issues I come across when carrying out an
accessibility audit, making sure I mark them as such.




On 3/23/16, Tim Harshbarger < <EMAIL REMOVED> > wrote:
> I've reached the personal point where I think there really is only one
> difference between accessibility and usability. The difference being that,
> in accessibility, we focus on users that may have some type or degree of
> disability that impacts how they interact with user interfaces (be it web
> pages, apps, or devices.) Usability in general can also include people with
> disabilities. However, most people who practice general usability don't
> specialize on a particular group of users like we do.
>
> I think sometimes the two can appear to be different things. I think that
> is because most things you read about usability tend to focus on trying to
> create an optimal user interface, while we still find ourselves struggling
> with questions about whether or not something can be used. My hope is that,
> as our own profession matures, we are able to adopt techniques from
> usability that will help us make better decisions and make progress on the
> level of accessibility.
>
> Thanks,
> Tim
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: WebAIM-Forum [mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> ] On Behalf
> Of Greg Gamble
> Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2016 4:33 PM
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Usability vs. Accessibility
>
> 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
> > > http://webaim.org/discussion/archives
> > > > > > > > > >


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