Website Accessibility and Usability

Website Accessibility and Usability LIS 7470 – Group 2 Joseph Anteau ← Keith Bridge ← Emily Nowack -> Judith Solomon -> Jessica Walker

Overview – What are we talking about?

“ Accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the Web and that they can contribute to the Web.

-- World Wide Web Consortium

“ Usability refers to how well users can learn and use a product to achieve their goals and how satisfied they are with that process.”

-- Usability.gov

Accessibility is defined by the user.

Users can have different kinds of disabilities:

Permanent

Color blindness

Gradual

Effects of aging on sight and hearing

Temporary

Broken arm that precludes typing

Situational

Standing up to give a presentation

Accessibility is defined by the user.

What if we:

Let the user control fonts and font sizes?

Limit pop-ups?

Offer closed captions for audio and video?

“ Increased accessibility for users with disabilities almost always leads to improved usability for all users.”

--J. Nielsen

Usability allows for differences among users and their environments.

Hardware

Software

Networks

Browsers

Currency of content

Information in databases

International audiences

Language

Systems of measurement

Money

Time

“ We’re thinking ‘great literature’ (or at least ‘product brochure’), while the user’s reality is much closer to ‘billboard going by at 60 mph’.”

--S. Krug, Don’t Make Me Think

What does this have to do with Information Architecture?

Information architecture balances between the creator’s purpose/goals and the users to determine how space is structured.

Usability balances factors like

user satisfaction

ease

tolerance of errors

(all of which are weighted by the creator’s purpose/goals. )

Website Accessibility

What is accessibility?

Website accessibility is the action taken by web designers and developers to ensure that a web site is available and user-friendly for wide variety of users.

Web sites should be designed to ensure that everyone can use them and use them correctly.

Who is affected?

People affected include:

Those with physical limitations, such as visual, auditory, physical, cognitive, or neurological disabilities

Those with mental or environmental conditions that limit their performance

Those with technology limitations

Who is affected?

1 in 5 people in the United State that have some kind of disability.

An estimated 30 million people are impacted by inaccessible computer and software design and the number of people with disabilities has increased 25% in the last decade. (www.usabilityfirst.com)

Knowing this, it is easy to see that accessibility in web site design needs to be thought of as an integral and vital part of a web site.

It is important to note that by designing a website to be accessible for those with a disability, we are helping them to utilize that web site more thoroughly.

Why is web accessibility important?

Designing a web site that is universally accessible to all people means that that the number of people that view the web site will increase.

Most web sites want people to use them, so it’s important to design them so that people can use them.

This is ideal for web sites that sell a product or want people to be able to utilize the site.

Why is web accessibility important?

In 1996 the Department of Justice determined that the Americans with Disabilities Act also applies to web pages.

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 includes legislation to enforce standards in converging technology, wireless communications, and emerging technology.

Federal Accessibility Standards

All United States Federal Government Web sites must now comply with Section 508 Federal Accessibility Standards

Section 508 sets forth many provisions and rules that governmental web sites must follow in order to be accessible to the people using the web site.

Using guidelines and rules to design an accessible web site helps to create a uniform design for web sites in general.

General Principles and Guidelines

To view the most up-to-date principles and guidelines, visit the World Wide Web Consortiums’ page on Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 .

Overall, web design needs to be thought of in terms of accessible design.

Ensure a graceful transformation

Separate structure from presentation (understand the difference between content, structure, and presentation).

Provide text (text is available to almost all browsing devices and very accessible).

Create documents that work even if the user can’t see or hear. Provide multiple means of the same information in different formats.

General Principles and Guidelines

Make content understandable and navigable

This includes making language clear and simple, and providing clear mechanisms for navigation and orientation.

Not all users can utilize visual clues and image maps or graphics. The design must include additional orientation information to ensure the site is accessible for all.

General Principles and Guidelines The guidelines are meant to be helpful for those designing a web site. Content developers should consider these different factors during page design to ensure that their web sites are designed so that more people can access their site.

Web accessibility conclusion

Overall, it is important to think about accessibility when designing a web site.

It should be an integral piece of web architecture.

Designing a web site for a diverse audience with increase the number of people who can ultimately use your site

An Extra Helping of Information

There are several additional guidelines around to help a web designer to make a web site accessible.

Research-based Web Design & Usability Guidelines

Section 508 Standards

Website Usability

What is usability?

Usability is the measurement of how well a user can access and get what they need from a website, CD-ROM, or software application.

Was the user able to meet their goals?

How much difficulty was there in the process?

Usability is defined by how well and satisfactorily a user is able to achieve their goals.

What does usability measure?

Ease of learning

How long does it take for a novice user to learn how our interface operates?

Efficiency of use

How easily can someone who knows the interface to accomplish their task.

Memorability

How easily can a user remember how it all operates the next time they use it.

Error Rate

What errors are being made and how often?

Are the errors something that we can do something about?

Subjective Satisfaction

Do the users enjoy using our interface?

Why is usability important?

There are millions of web sites out there that all contain the same information.

To make your website stand out and get more traffic it is imperative to make it the easiest to use with a high user success rate.

If a website is not user friendly then it will not be visited by the users.

How to create a user-friendly website

There are several questions that you must ask when developing a website:

What are your agency's primary business objectives and how do they relate the Web?

Who are the users of your Web site?

What are your users' tasks and goals?

What information do your users need, and in what form do they need it?

What functions do your users want from the Web site?

How do users think your Web site should work?

What are your users' experience levels with the Web site?

How can the design of your Web site facilitate users' cognitive processes?

What hardware and software will the majority of your users use to access your site?

How to create a user-friendly website

Steps in planning:

collect data from users

develop prototypes

write content

conduct usability testing with users

How to measure usability

You must measure:

Effectiveness

Efficiency

Satisfaction

Ease of learning

Memorability

Error frequency and severity

Data to collect:

Success rates

Time used to complete the task

How many pages on the site do the users visit before finding what they need?

How easy are the pages to find on the site?

Benefits to a highly usable system

Increase in productivity

Increase in customer satisfaction

Increase in sales and revenues

Reduction of development time and costs

Reduction in maintenance costs

Reduction in training and support costs

Professional Organizations

ACM SIGCHI - Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction - the premier organization for HCI and usability professionals and researchers.

Usability Professionals' Association - another organization aimed primarily at practitioners

Usability Special Interest Group - Society for Technical Communication

Usability’s Professional Association - The UPA supports those who promote and advance the development of usable products, reaching out to people who act as advocates for usability and the user experience.

Useful Links

Excellent Websites about Accessibility and Usability

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services – Usability.gov

About the site:

“ Usability.gov is the primary government source for information on usability and user-centered design. It provides guidance and tools on how to make Web sites and other communication systems more usable and useful.”

World Wide Web Consortium

About the site:

“ The World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) commitment to lead the Web to its full potential includes promoting a high degree of usability for people with disabilities. The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) develops its work through W3C's consensus-based process, involving different stakeholders in Web accessibility. These include industry, disability organizations, government, accessibility research organizations, and more.”

Website Tips

About the site:

This website has many links to websites, articles, and books about usability.

Usability News

About the site:

“ Usability News is a free web newsletter that is produced by the Software Usability Research Laboratory (SURL) . The SURL team specializes in software/website user interface design research, human-computer interaction research, and usability testing and research.”