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Re: Accessibility user testing

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From: L Snider
Date: Jul 18, 2016 4:28PM

Hi Zack,

For your question about advice on barriers...I never provided advice to
testers, because in the real world the user would maybe try a couple of
things that they had done before as workarounds, but if they failed they
couldn't use the site, and would need to go away from it. For my user
testing and research study, I only gave tasks to testers, and recording
what happened. I didn't want my biases or knowledge to get in the way. For
me, I did it this way because it was then done the same way for every
tester and I had no 'bias' in the process. I felt this was important in
terms of the end results, so that they were 'real world', albeit in a
testing realm.

I just wanted to add one thing that happened when I did a research study
that involved user testing by people using different AT. I ran into a case
where a screen reader user could not get on to the page due to a
problematic search box that was at the top of the code and it meant the
user could not keyboard anywhere on the page to complete the task. It was a
mess, because that search box kept them out of the website as a whole (I
used that site a lot to show people what not to do). So that person could
not complete the task. You may encounter this, and it is a powerful weapon
to show why inaccessible websites should not be in the world in 2016!

Cheers

Lisa
Lisa Snider
Accessibility Consultant
Everything Accessibility

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 4:40 PM, Zack McCartney < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
wrote:

> Hi Dana,
>
> First off, thanks so much for your detailed reply and all the advice. And
> for the resources, too. This sort of test is totally outside my comfort
> zone, so I really appreciate the starting points :)
>
> I wanted to follow up on your point about providing assistance to the
> participant: do you have any advice for how to assist and instruct
> participants when the encounter barriers?
>
> I'm unsure about doing this well in usability testing in general, even more
> so with participants using a screenreader.
>
> Thanks again for all your help and welcoming me to the forum!
> Zack
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2016 at 11:06 AM Dana Douglas < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
> > Zack,
> >
> > Welcome! Including people with disabilities in a usability test is a
> great
> > way to evaluate a site's accessibility. Here are a few resources you may
> > find helpful (there are certainly others as well) :
> >
> > Slides from my 2015 UXPA presentation on the topic:
> >
> http://www.slideshare.net/UXPA/uxpa-2015-why-how-to-include-people-with-disabilities-pw-ds-in-your-usability-testsdouglas-and-davis-6252015-49918852
> > A UXPA Magazine article by Mary Hunter Utt on the topic:
> > http://uxpamagazine.org/guerilla_tactics/
> > An article from Deque Systems on the topic:
> > http://www.deque.com/blog/incorporate-users-disabilities-ux-testing/
> >
> > In general, the test can be virutally the same as any other usability
> test
> > (same tasks, methodology, etc.). You will want to make sure the web
> > conference tool you're using is accessible for screen reader users (and
> > other assistive technologies). Skype may be the best bet - participants
> can
> > share their screen through Skype. The test should be as realistic as
> > possible. If users would not have any outside instructions or information
> > in the real world, you should not provide that information during the
> > usabilty test either. However, if that presents a significant barrier
> > (first of all, you know you have an accessibility issue to fix!), but
> then
> > you can provide assistance to move on and gather additional feedback on
> > other aspects of the site.
> >
> > Good luck!
> >
> > Dana Douglas
> >
> >