Event: SoCal UX Camp 2016 Presented by: Brenna Gordon UX Research and Accessibility - Working with Visually Impaired Participants An in depth look at usability tests with visually impaired participants. My session may cover (subject to change): - Test environment setup - Specific accommodations for usability testing with visually impaired participants - Uncomfortable subject matter: what should and shouldn't you say or do? - Recruiting and coordinating sessions in an educational setting - Additional caveats involved when recruiting the visually impaired population I have been working with accessibility for the past year and am the lead accessibility researcher at McGraw-Hill Education. Accessibility is a huge undertaking. More and more companies are realizing the power behind making their products accessible. If you can make it easier for anyone to use, you actually make it easier for everyone to use along the way. The sooner you can build accessibility into your development cycle, the better off you will be. It is not a part of development you can slap on at the end and expect to push in a week, or even a month.

1. ©2016 McGraw-Hill Education. Confidential and Proprietary. Not for redistribution.
©2016 McGraw-Hill Education.
Confidential and Proprietary.
Not for redistribution.
SOCAL UX CAMP
UX Research and Accessibility
Brenna Gordon
August 6, 2016

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3. Coordinating Site Visits
for Usability Testing

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Coordinating Research – Educational Setting
Recruit Potential Candidates for Site Visits and Usability Testing
1. Gather potential candidate information
• Send surveys
• Utilize existing customer database
• Speak with your internal contacts
• Email potential candidates directly
2. Contact sites
• Reach out to contacts gathered from surveys
• Reach out to the institution’s Disabled Student Services
3. Find proper person to partner with at the site—this is your coordinator
• This may take a few rounds of emails
• It is crucial to have the proper coordinator
(continued on next slide…)

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Coordinating Research – Educational Setting
Recruit Potential Candidates for Site Visits and Usability Testing cont…
4. Work with your coordinator to schedule the visit and testing
• Have coordinator schedule times with participants, ensuring 15+ minutes
between each individual and time for a lunch break
• Request proper facilities (e.g. quiet room for testing, electrical outlets, Wi-Fi
access, tables, chairs etc.)
5. Follow up with your coordinator to confirm schedule
• Ensure they follow up with participants
6. Go on site visit, conduct tests, and gather data!

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How do you compensate your usability test participants?
Usability testing honorariums vary widely depending on who your participants are. Since
accessibility testing participants are a very specific demographic, and they are hard to
recruit, we give them a larger honorarium than an easier to find demographic.
For the ALEKS Accessibility project, each usability testing participant was emailed an
Amazon gift card.
We chose to email the gift cards to the participants instead of handing them a physical gift
card. We tried to find Braille gift cards, but they do not exist. We already knew the
participants were computer literate due to the testing requirements, so emailing them was
the best choice in order to convey the gift card code and amount.
6
Honorariums – Participants

7. Usability Testing With
Participants Who Are Visually
Impaired

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Prepare yourself for working with
participants who are visually
impaired
• Learn how your participants interact
with your medium
• Blind Film Critic – Instagram
• Visually Impaired Redditor
• Familiarize yourself with JAWS (or
the screen reader of your choice)
• Install software
• Turn off screen
• See how your program works
• Go on an initial discovery site visit to
see people in action using
technology
8
Preparing for Usability Testing
Developers may need to code
• Before you conduct user testing,
there will probably need to be
updates to coding to Web Content
Accessibility (WCAG) standards

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Usability Test Setup
• Two laptops
• Tech Smith’s Morae program
• Traditional keyboard
• Morae Observer laptop is the laptop
the moderator used to take notes
• JAWS
• Video: https://youtu.be/si1_iR5lbyg
• Hub
• Wi-Fi
9
Setting Up The Testing Environment

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Usability Test Setup
10
Setting Up The Testing Environment

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What specific accommodations should you consider when conducting usability testing
with visually impaired participants?
• When working with a laptop and a screen reader, you will also need a traditional
keyboard to plug into the laptop.
• Participants do not use a mouse in conjunction with a screen reader. You only need one
if you plan on using it yourself.
11
Usability Testing Accommodations

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What specific accommodations should you consider when conducting usability testing
with visually impaired participants?
• Participants often have their own braille displays. Braille displays are single line,
refreshable displays made of round-tipped pins raised through holes in a flat surface
that read the text on the screen. They also have keys for users to input information into
fields and certain models can store information.
• Braille displays work in conjunction with JAWS and will display the words JAWS reads.
12
Usability Testing Accommodations

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How does a visually impaired participant sign the waiver/participation release form?
1. Read the waiver out loud to the participant.
2. Ask the participant if they have any questions.
3. Bring a pen for the participant to use when signing the waiver. Hand them the pen.
4. Place the pen on the line for the participant to sign.
5. Date and print the participant’s name on the form for them.
13
Usability Testing Accommodations
It is useful to have a signature guide for participants to use when signing the waiver. A
signature guide is the size of a credit card (see image below).

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What other things should you keep in mind when working with visually impaired
participants?
• It is okay to say the words “see” or “blind”
• Be mindful of guide dogs
• Try to vocalize your actions as much as possible
• Offer your arm if you need to move areas
• Be specific when describing where to sit; place their hand on the back of the chair
Remote user testing via JAWS
JAWS has a built-in screen share feature called Tandem. It is easier to run than a traditional
screen share such as WebEx or GoToMeeting, especially when using Morae (the usability
testing software we use at ALEKS). Plus there are no extra add-ons to install, and the
participant doesn’t need to learn a new software since they are already familiar with JAWS.
1. Run Morae
2. Run JAWS
3. Use Tandem feature on JAWS
4. Use speaker phone
5. Record session using Morae
14
Usability Testing Accommodations

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Thank You!
©2015 McGraw-Hill Education.
brennagordon17@gmail.com
linkedin.com/in/brennagordon