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Testing for Accessibility and Usability. Is Your Site Accessible and Usable or Just Conformant?. Presenters. Jason White – Co-Chair, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group Naomi Heagney – The Hiser Group Andrew Arch – Vision Australia Foundation.
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Testing for Accessibility and Usability Is Your Site Accessible and Usable or Just Conformant?
Presenters • Jason White – Co-Chair, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group • Naomi Heagney – The Hiser Group • Andrew Arch – Vision Australia Foundation
W3C and Accessibility Success Criteria Jason White
WCAG 1.0 • Issues with conformance
WCAG 2.0 • Testable success criteria • Abstraction and specificity • Definition of testability • Either machine testable or human testable • Introduction of review requirements into success criteria • E.g. text equivalent
WCAG 2.0 continued • WCAG 2.0 is multi layered • Design principles • Guidelines and Checkpoints • Techniques for technologies • Test cases as part of techniques • Machine testable • Human testable • Non-testable
A Usability Perspective Naomi Heagney
Usability & Accessibility • What is Usability? • Similarities and differences • Focus • Resources • Method • Standards and legislation
What is Usability? Usability is the extent to which a product can be used by specified users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction in a specified context of use. – Definition from ISO 9241-11
What is Usability? • User Centred Design (UCD) is an iterative and collaborative methodology: • Analysis • Design • Evaluation • Usability is not just “lab testing” • Reviews, walkthroughs, in-situ testing
Similarities • The people • Involvement in development processes • Integrated • The earlier the better • Need knowledge of: • Target audience • Personal characteristics
Differences • Focus • Conformance versus site improvement • Qualitative & quantitative data • Measures for usability are project-specific • Resources • Different specialist knowledge required
Differences • Evaluation methods • Less emphasis on automated tools • Variety of techniques, scalable to project constraints • Standards & legislation • Focus on process rather than product • WCAG & checkpoints provide excellent basis for legislative support
Accessibility Testing Andrew Arch
Concept and Design Review • Critical consideration of end-to-end process • Identify: • Objective • Options for implementation • Assess strategies that could be used • Consider requirements on the user
Manual Checking • Requires knowledge and understanding • Involves: • Reviewing content • Reviewing code • User testing
Site Testing by Assistive Technology Users • Complements technical accessibility testing, but does not replace it. • Purpose is to appreciate usability issues for users of assistive technology. • User testing CANNOT determine if a site or online object works with all assistive technology. • User testers need to be skilled, but not expert with their technology.
Technical Accessibility Checking • Automated Tools • All do a partial job • All have flaws or weaknesses • Interpretation needed (manual checking and rectification) • Many “pseudo tools” are available by using the options included as standard within your computer
Browser settings Built-in checking Colour checkers Link checkers The Wave A-Prompt Tidy Code validators Commercial Tools Evaluation & Repair Tools Full list: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/existingtools.html
Pseudo Tools – Browser Setting Options • Change the font to a larger size • View pages without images • View pages with styles sheets and pages colours/fonts disabled • View pages with an alternative, high contrast, colour scheme • Use the keyboard not the mouse to navigate • Disable scripts, applets and/or plugins • Try different browsers & versions
Built in Checking – eg. Dreamweaver See also WAI Authoring Tools guidelines
Colour Checkers • Colour Contrast • http://www.lighthouse.org/color_contrast.htm • http://aprompt.snow.utoronto.ca/ColorVisibilityProgram.html (Beta version) • Colour tester – colour blind • http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html • http://www.vischeck.com/ • Legible text • http://www.lighthouse.org/print_leg.htm
Link Checkers • Link checkers: non-existent URLs • http://www.linkalarm.com/ • http://www.tetranetsoftware.com/solutions/linkbot/looking-for-linkbot.asp • http://www.cyberspyder.com/cslnkts1.html • http://validator.w3.org/checklink • Cannot check for incorrect addresses
Pros Visual Shows reading order Shows logical structure Shows suspect ALT text Identifies scripts as a potential accessibility issue Cons No fixes No recommendations The Wave http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/
Pros Offers repairs Alt text registry Cons Slow to use Repairs code Interactive A-Prompt http://www.aprompt.ca/
Pros Offers to fix code Formats HTML Works with HTML/XHTML/ Cleans up Word conversions Advice on accessibility & internationalisation Pros …cont GUI front-end available Interfaces with several authoring tools Cons Very technical Tidy http://www.w3.org/people/Raggett/tidy/
Code Validators • HTML Validator • W3C: http://validator.w3.org/ • NetMechanic, WebDesignGroup • CSS Validator • http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ • SMIL Validator • http://www.cwi.nl/~media/symm/validator/
Site Evaluation & Repair Tools(Commercial, but with free limited checks or trials) • Bobby (Watchfire) • http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp • Lift Online(Usablenet) • http://www.usablenet.com/ • Ask Alice (SSB Technology) • http://askalice.ssbtechnologies.com:8080/askalice/index.html • Accverify (HiSoftware) • http://www.hisoftware.com/access/sitetest.htm
Management Considerations • How much will it cost? • What can “I” do? • Where do we need help? • What is the developers role? • What can I expect of “off the shelf” software? • What about outsourced sites?
References • Evaluating Websites for Accessibilityhttp://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/Overview.html • The WAVEhttp://www.temple.edu/instituteondisabilities/piat/wave/ • Tidyhttp://tidy.sourceforge.net/ • A-Prompthttp://www.aprompt.ca/