Blog Accessibility and Usability for Blind Users. Brian Wentz, M. Cirba, N. Kharal, J. Moran, M. Slate

Transcription

1 Blog Accessibility and Usability for Blind Users Brian Wentz, M. Cirba, N. Kharal, J. Moran, M. Slate

2 Users with Visual Impairments 285 million individuals worldwide who are visually impaired, including 39 million who are blind (WHO, 2011) Most blind individuals access web sites through the use of screen readers like JAWS Less than 10% are fluent in Braille Blind individuals face unique challenges when using computer software and web sites Page 2

3 Accessible interfaces What is an accessible interface? In US, all federal or federally-funded information technology must be accessible, and the ADA in the US is currently being clarified to require accessible information technology (and web sites) for all public accommodations The Equality Act in the UK also specifies the need for Web services to be accessible Page 3

4 Blog Platforms Used for communicating, collaborating, voicing feedback and concerns, promoting opinions Even schools and government agencies are employing the use of blogs Page 4

5 Blog Challenges A study in 2005 by the American Foundation for the Blind noted some problems with blogs such as: Registering for a blog Reading blogs We expanded that by looking at: Posting comments related to blog articles Creating and using a blog platform Page 5

6 Research Methodology: Phases Phase One: Usability Testing Blog Comment Posting 15 participants who are blind Netbook with an external keyboard/speakers JAWS 12 and Internet Explorer 8 Data logging software to record keystrokes Stopwatch to record time spent on each task Phase Two: Manual Accessibility Evaluation of Blog Platforms 4 independent reviewers collaborate for 1 report Page 6

7 Research Methodology: Phase 1 15 Participants: Self-labeled as blind JAWS screen reader users At least 18 years of age Recruited through s to the Pennsylvania chapters of the National Federation of the Blind as well as the Pennsylvania Council of the Blind Page 7

8 Blog Platform Selection While there are many blog platforms, Blogger (from Google) and Wordpress make up 85% of the blog platform market There are many templates that bloggers can choose, but the focus of our study was the default template for both platforms Page 8

9 Sample of Tasks in each Blog #1: Open the blog and read one of the existing comments posted after the blog article #2: Add your own comment to the blog article Page 9

10 Research Methodology: Phase 2 Manual accessibility evaluation of both Blogger and WordPress platforms 4 individuals each complete evaluation, then combine results Evaluation of things such as registering and creating a blog, creating and removing blog content Page 10

11 Evaluation based on Guidelines Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act (very similar to WCAG 1): Things like: Text equivalent for graphical elements Captioning The use of color to convey meaning Properly labeled and accessible forms Method to skip navigational links Alerts on timed responses Page 11

12 Demographics years of age 8 male / 7 female 12 (of 15) had completed some college or were college graduates Most common OS used was XP Most common Web browser was IE 8 Avg years using JAWS (screen reader) was 10.8 years Page 12

13 Previous Experience/Value 12 (of 15) had read comments on a blog 7 (of 12) had no difficulty reading comments 7 (of 15) had posted comments on blogs 4 (of 15) had created (or tried to create) a blog: 2 of those had difficulty Value of Blogging: participants equally valued the ability to read, comment and create blogs Page 13

14 Summary Results Task Blog Platform Completion Percentage Mean Time Standard Deviation 1: Read a comment Blogger 80% (12 out of 15) sec sec. 1: Read a comment WordPress 67% (10 out of 15) sec sec. 2: Post a comment Blogger 0% - - 2: Post a comment WordPress 53% (8 out of 15) 129 sec sec. Page 14

15 Impact of Experience For reading blog comments, previous experience seemed to make a difference on the Blogger interface For writing blog comments, previous experience seemed to make a difference on the WordPress interface Page 15

16 Some of the Usability Problems Post Comment button on Blogger that didn t work as expected Audio CAPTCHA on Blogger that is not embedded and requires an external plug-in to work Page 16

17 Accessibility Evaluations Automated evaluations can be beneficial (using software like WorldSpace or WAVE), but can miss accessibility that relies on context Manual inspections combined with the use of a screen reader are very accurate and can compliment usability testing The accuracy increases when multiple individuals evaluate the same interface Page 17

18 Evaluation Procedures Guided by Section 508 (US law) but based on WCAG principles, so broad application Sighted individual using a screen reader and analyzing the web site code when necessary We evaluated the Home pages, Account creation pages, and blog management pages for Blogger and WordPress Page 18

19 Accessibility Evaluation Results Major accessibility barriers with the registration process and management interfaces Images lacked alternate text Tables were missing mark-up Labels were not properly associated with controls Color alone was used to identify information Page 19

20 Evaluation Results, cont d Some components required the use of a pointing device Video without caption/transcript Inaccessible drop-down menus Form fields not properly labeled Untitled frames Lack of way to skip repetitive navigational links Page 20

21 Sample Problem Page 21

22 Implications Basic usability evaluations would have found most of the usability problems The accessibility problems identified are not difficulty to correct Regular accessibility evaluations would prevent such problems from occurring Paying attention to accessibility and usability can positively improve the online experience of millions of users! Page 22

23 Thank you! Any Questions?