Insights into Cognitive
Web Accessibility
Jared Smith
http://webaim.org

Cognitive and learning disabilities are complex

Principles
• Memory
• Problem-solving
• Attention
• Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension
• Math comprehension
• Visual comprehension

Cognitive disability is not a binary state

Cognitive Web Accessibility
Principles and techniques that ensure content is
as widely available as possible to people with
cognitive and learning disabilities

Very Difficult! Why?
Previous research is sparse and disparate
It’s a very diverse population
Recommendations for one disability may
disadvantage another
Cognitive and learning disabilities have been
largely unaddressed in guidelines

WebAIM’s Project
• Create an automated web accessibility
evaluation tool, similar to WAVE, for cognitive
accessibility.
• Focus on K-12 students
• Provide insight into cognitive and learning
disability and web accessibility

Our Goal
• Cognitive accessibility principles that are...
• broadly applicable
• of interest and use to web developers
• machine testable

Our Process
• Literature review
• Broadly applicable
• Developer survey
• Of interest to web developers
• Analysis
• Machine testable
• User testing
• Verify applicability and relevance

Elements Analyzed
• Font size
• Headings
• Images
• Line length
• Lists
• Multimedia
• Reading level
• Search
• Serif vs. sans-serif text

User Testing
• Matched Pairs
• Tried to isolate the element being
analyzed
• Measured efficiency, effectiveness, and
satisfaction/ease
• 8 grade 6-12 students with cognitive or
learning disabilities

Small font size
vs
slightly above average font size
Larger text was more efficient, effective, and
satisfying in nearly all cases

Images paired with text content
vs.
text content alone

Images paired with text content
vs. text content alone
7 out of 8 were more efficient and more
satisfied with images

Line Length
Short (~25 characters)
vs.
average (~75 characters)
vs.
long (~120 characters)
All subjects took longer on the long line length
pages. Little difference between short and
average.

Line Length
Students perceived the long line length page as
being shorter than the others and reported it as
being easiest...
...but it actually took them much longer to read it.

Multimedia
Seven of the eight students were more efficient
and also expressed more user satisfaction from
the page with the video instructions than the one
with written instructions.

Less conclusive
• Headings
• Students were slightly more efficient
without headings. Though the short subject
matter likely affected this.
• Students sometimes did not read headings
• Lists
• Student preferred the page with lists, but
were no more efficient with them.

Less conclusive
• Reading level
• No marked difference (though a very short
sample)
• Search
• Spelling proved difficult.
• They took time to choose “the one” correct
search result (probably a factor of the testing)
• Serif vs. Sans-serif
• No marked difference
• Many other studies show no difference in WEB
readability or comprehension, but significant
differences in satisfaction.

Initial Findings and Observations
Perceived difficulty may have a
bigger impact than actual difficulty

Perceived difficulty
Page with larger text appeared shorter
(though it wasn’t) and was thus
perceived as easier.
Was the page more efficient because of
large text or because it was perceived as
easier???

Perceived difficulty
Make your page LOOK easy

Initial Findings and Observations
Confirmation for confidence

Confirmation for confidence
Students spent a lot of time finding
THE ONE correct answer.
Search results were overwhelming.

Confirmation for confidence
It wasn't a matter of finding the
correct answer, it was a matter of
choosing the correct answer.
Make your pages simple and
intuitive. Provide error recovery
mechanisms.

Initial Findings and Observations
Distractions

Distractions
Keep visual aids clean,
simple, and complementary
to the content

Initial Findings and Observations
Self-paced

Self-paced
Multimedia introduces a specific timing
element. Can users keep up?
A transcript, a prominent pause feature,
and an ability to quickly rewind or replay
the video allow users to use multimedia
at their own pace.

Initial Findings and Observations
Consistency and organization

Consistency and organization
While organizational
elements (headings,
lists, etc.) can help
accessibility, they should
be clearly differentiable
from other elements.

Consistency and organization

Consistency and organization
The “Science of Hockey” section was nearly
invisible to some students. Some never found it
after minutes of reading the page.
It was a parallel item to the other sports, but
was not presented consistently.

Much more work needs to be
done in this area

Questions and Discussion
?

Thank You!
Jared Smith
http://webaim.org
twitter: @jared_w_smith