I general, I advise designers to apply the standards (W3C, 508 … Whatever they have chosen) as diligently as possible keeping in mind the the intent of the standards (rather than just meeting the guidelines as worded). It is up to browser technology to also adhere to the standards. Theoretically, that should provide visitors an appropriate experience regardless of their disability. There is no way anyone can test effectively for all possible disabilities, even with "expert" human testers.
First, the testers must be trained to remove personal bias (a preference for navigation placement for instance) from actual accessibility issues. Second, you can't possibly afford to test against all possible disability combination ( not JST blindness but perhaps low vision with arthritis, color blindness with hearing impairment or impairment or ). The intent of the standards is to provide the largest number of developers guidelines they can adopt to make their sites as universally usable by the widest number of user possible. And to provide browser (and other software/hardware) manufacturers guidelines on how to develop client technology that will provide an appropriate user experience. Will this work perfectly? No. Where shortfalls are identified, the standards will be enhanced (hopefully). In fact there is no single standard. W3C has multiple flavors. Which standard is used also impacts the degree of accessibility. So, if an organization chose WCAG 2 A sat the standard, obviously, their sites will not be as usable for visitors need a greater amount of accommodation (say WCAG 2 AA or AAA). That said, am I against user testing? Not at all. If it is available to you, use it. It can only help. Should lack of such a resource prevent you from crafting accessible content? Not at all. By the by, even when testing content, use as many tools as you can. They all report different results, which can often be enlightening. Finally, the http://amnestyshop.org.uk/christmas-2010.html page has accessibility issues (forms mislabeled, fiedlsets with no legend, reliance on javascript to provide menu access, links with same label that have different target), no navigation skipping mechanism). Depending on the tool I use, I get 109 issues- Parsing (use of &): 3, HTML: 57, WCAG v2 A: 49. SO, the page has issues that can be detected. As far as how easy it is to navigate, most of the main elements have headers and this are used in a mostly correct fashion, so a browser that can dew]al correctly with headers allows a visitor to easily(?) move through the content (better with a skip nav). ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Rick Hill From: Steve Green <steve.gr...@testpartners.co.uk<mailto:steve.gr...@testpartners.co.uk>> Reply-To: "wsg@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:wsg@webstandardsgroup.org>" <wsg@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:wsg@webstandardsgroup.org>> Date: Fri, 22 Oct 2010 07:27:41 -0700 To: "wsg@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:wsg@webstandardsgroup.org>" <wsg@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:wsg@webstandardsgroup.org>> Subject: RE: [WSG] Accessibility Testing -----Original Message----- From: li...@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org> [mailto:li...@webstandardsgroup.org] On Behalf Of Lesley Lutomski Sent: 22 October 2010 14:49 To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:wsg@webstandardsgroup.org> Subject: [WSG] Accessibility Testing On 20/10/10 21:13, Nick Stone wrote: > Does anyone have suggestions on how to obtain website usability feedback > > from various members of the disabled community? Kevin Ireson replied with some helpful comments, but I think Nick's main point was that there is no substitute for testing by real people with real disabilities and that can be very hard to achieve. I can try to make my sites accessible to someone using a screen reader, for example, but as I don't use one myself I'm only guessing at how a real user would approach the site. Accessibility testing software is helpful, but doesn't test for all types of disability. For example, there are a wide range of conditions that result in impaired movement, including things as common as arthritis. These can make using mouse and keyboard both quite difficult. With this in mind, might I suggest you visit http://amnestyshop.org.uk/christmas-2010.html and see if you find any potential problems. Would your normal accessibility testing have thrown up these issues, or not? (I apologise for picking on Amnesty; it has the most extreme version I know of a common problem.) I do know of one organisation that arranges site testing by disabled people, but their charges are beyond the budget of any of my clients. Any ideas, anyone? Thank you. Lesley ----------- Since you ask, we arrange user testing with disabled participants and assistive technologies. It's not cheap but we are more cost-effective than the larger organisations such as RNIB, Shaw Trust and AbilityNet. An intermediate option is an expert review by a consultant with experience of user testing, and we do this when time and/or budget are limited. Obviously it doesn't pick up all the issues that user testing does, but it's a fraction of the cost and it picks up enough issues to be worthwhile. We also provide screen reader training for developers and testers who want an insight into how people use screen readers. This course teaches enough to do some basic testing and provides a lot of guidelines for accessible design (beyond compliance with WCAG). If even this is not affordable, there's no reason why you can't arrange your own user testing. At first it takes a bit of work to find participants, and you will have to pay them an incentive (typically £20 to £30 per hour plus travel). In most cases you can do the testing in people's homes, so you don't need any equipment or software. You will need to read up on how to run user tests to get the best results, but it's not rocket science and there is lots of guidance on the web. There are quite a few disability support groups who will help you find participants, but be aware that those who offer a testing service (such as the three I mentioned above) tend not to be cooperative. Steve Green Managing Director Test Partners Ltd ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org<mailto:memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org> ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
