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From: Myron To
Date: Thu, May 14 2020 4:29PM
Subject: Personalized user experiences
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I've been trying to research if there is any guideline that would tell me
whether or not the following is a failure or not.

My company has designed and built a career website that customizes its
homepage based on the user's job search behavior on the site. That is, if
we find that a job seeker on our site has searched for and viewed a nursing
category job, we assume that person is interested in a nursing career and
cookie that user's browser so that if the user clicks on the home link in
the main navigation, the user is presented with an alternate homepage that
contains nursing career information, instead of generic career information,
which is presented on our default/non-personalized homepage. However, in
reality, the cookie tells the browser to redirect to an alternate homepage
(different URL). The personalized nursing homepage template is very similar
to the default homepage, but the contents, such as text and images, now
present nursing-oriented text and graphics.

I imagine this could be disorienting for some because if there was
something specific on the default homepage that the user wanted to see
again, the user wouldn't be able to find it because it's not on this
redirected page URL. And the user is likely not to notice that the URL
changed or that the user had been redirected to an alternate homepage.

Does this scenario present a WCAG failure? If so, which guideline can I
reference as an argument to my team?

If the URL did not change or redirect to another page, and we simply used a
show/hide condition to swap out images and text, would that pass? I think
of how Amazon customizes their homepage experience based on my past
shopping behavior in order to entice me to buy other similar items, but
their URL doesn't change. Would this type of scenario be acceptable or is
it still disorienting and considered a failure?

Thank you for your input!

*Myron To*
Director, Program Management
m: +1.360.702.9411
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From: Steve Green
Date: Thu, May 14 2020 6:45PM
Subject: Re: Personalized user experiences
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I don't see anything that would constitute a WCAG non-conformance. The only success criteria that are even remotely relevant are 3.2.3 (Consistent Navigation) and 3.2.4 (Consistent Identification), but you don't appear to be violating those.

Steve Green
Managing Director
Test Partners Ltd

From: Christine Hogenkamp
Date: Fri, May 15 2020 12:35PM
Subject: Re: Personalized user experiences
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I would argue that changing the site/page layout without notifying the user
does constitute a fail of:
3.2.3 Consistent Navigation: Navigational mechanisms that are repeated on
multiple Web pages within a set of Web pages occur in the same relative
order each time they are repeated, unless a change is initiated by the
user. (Level AA)
Particularly: "unless a change is initiated by the user"
If you don't tell the user the homepage has been changed on purpose and
why, they may think the page loaded incorrectly or they aren't on the same
site anymore, that sort of thing.

Is there a way you could get the site to create a new element when this
change occurs, to inform the user something like "Based on your career
selection, the homepage has been updated with content related to your
career interests" or similar? As a pop-up that appears when the homepage
reloads with their updated content, possibly.

*===*
*Christine Hogenkamp*
Front-end Developer

CONTEXT CREATIVE
317 ADELAIDE ST. W., #500 | TORONTO, ON CANADA | M5V 1P9
<https://maps.google.com/?q=317+ADELAIDE+ST.+W.,+%23500%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+TORONTO,+ON+CANADA%C2%A0+%7C%C2%A0+M5V+1P9&entry=gmail&source=g>

>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Steve Green < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> To: WebAIM Discussion List < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >
> Cc:
> Bcc:
> Date: Fri, 15 May 2020 00:45:03 +0000
> Subject: Re: [WebAIM] Personalized user experiences
> I don't see anything that would constitute a WCAG non-conformance. The
> only success criteria that are even remotely relevant are 3.2.3 (Consistent
> Navigation) and 3.2.4 (Consistent Identification), but you don't appear to
> be violating those.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>

From: glen walker
Date: Fri, May 15 2020 4:17PM
Subject: Re: Personalized user experiences
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I get how 3.2.3 might try to be used in this case, but I agree with Steve
that this isn't a WCAG issue. 3.2.3 is talking about "Navigational
mechanisms that are repeated on multiple Web pages". In the described
scenario, you haven't even gotten to the webpage yet. It redirected before
it was loaded, so you haven't had a chance to see any of the navigational
elements yet.

Amazon (in the US) has a similar problem but you might not notice it unless
you're auditing the Amazon site for accessibility issues. They have a
hidden link

<a href="/access">Welcome to Amazon.com. If you prefer a simplified
shopping experience, try the mobile web version of Amazon at
www.amazon.com/access. The mobile web version is similar to the mobile app.
Stay on Amazon.com for access to all the features of the main Amazon
website.</a>

Only screen reader users hear the link. If you follow the link to the
"access" site, it saves a cookie on your computer so that when you go to
amazon.com in the future, it always goes to the access site. The URL
doesn't change, it still shows amazon.com, but the contents are different.
Amazon does not provide a way to get back to the full site anymore. You
have to delete your amazon cookies to get the full experience again.

From: Mallory
Date: Sat, May 16 2020 4:17AM
Subject: Re: Personalized user experiences
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I agree with Steve re WCAG, but I've seen time and time again instances where users start comparing web pages and end up complaining about filter bubbles or geo-idiocy or whatever.

Do what you're doing but have a one-sentence statement near the top of the content stating the results are based on previous actions and offer a link to the "default" homepage. This lets you continue to offer what your company feels is a user-oriented service while not doing the hotel-lobby-in-a-foreign-country thing (I hate being in a country where I don't speak the language and either using a computer in that country, or websites doing geo-ip-crap give me a sub-par experience).

Remember the instances of shared computers ie inter-family, public library/school, etc. where the cookies aren't tied to users at all.

cheers,
_mallory

On Fri, May 15, 2020, at 2:45 AM, Steve Green wrote:
> I don't see anything that would constitute a WCAG non-conformance. The
> only success criteria that are even remotely relevant are 3.2.3
> (Consistent Navigation) and 3.2.4 (Consistent Identification), but you
> don't appear to be violating those.
>
> Steve Green
> Managing Director
> Test Partners Ltd
>
>
>