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 criteriaAbstraction and specificity

Definition of testabilityEither machine testable or human testable

Introduction of review requirements into success criteriaE.g. text equivalent

WCAG 2.0 continued

WCAG 2.0 is multi layeredDesign principlesGuidelines and CheckpointsTechniques for technologies

Test cases as part of techniquesMachine testableHuman testableNon-testable

A Usability Perspective

Naomi Heagney

Usability & Accessibility

What is Usability?

Similarities and differencesFocusResourcesMethodStandards 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:

AnalysisDesign Evaluation

Usability is not just “lab testing”Reviews, walkthroughs, in-situ testing

Similarities

The people

Involvement in development processes IntegratedThe earlier the better

Need knowledge of:Target audiencePersonal characteristics

Differences

Focus Conformance versus site improvementQualitative & quantitative dataMeasures for usability are project-specific

ResourcesDifferent specialist knowledge required

Differences

Evaluation methodsLess emphasis on automated tools Variety of techniques, scalable to project

constraints

Standards & legislationFocus on process rather than productWCAG & checkpoints provide excellent

basis for legislative support

Accessibility Testing

Andrew Arch

Concept and Design Review

Critical consideration of end-to-end process

Identify:ObjectiveOptions for implementation

Assess strategies that could be used Consider requirements on the user

Manual Checking

Requires knowledge and understanding

Involves:Reviewing contentReviewing codeUser 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 ToolsAll do a partial jobAll have flaws or weaknessesInterpretation needed (manual

checking and rectification)

Many “pseudo tools” are available by using the options included as standard within your computer

Evaluation & Repair Tools

Browser settingsBuilt-in checkingColour checkersLink checkersThe Wave

A-PromptTidyCode validatorsCommercial

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 URLshttp://www.linkalarm.com/http://www.tetranetsoftware.com/

solutions/linkbot/looking-for-linkbot.asp http://www.cyberspyder.com/cslnkts1.htmlhttp://validator.w3.org/checklink

Cannot check for incorrect addresses

The Wave

Pros Visual Shows reading order Shows logical

structure Shows suspect ALT

text Identifies scripts as a

potential accessibility issue

Cons No fixes No

recommendations

http://www.temple.edu/inst_disabilities/piat/wave/

A-Prompt

Pros Offers repairs Alt text registry

Cons Slow to use Repairs code Interactive

http://www.aprompt.ca/

TidyPros 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

http://www.w3.org/people/Raggett/tidy/

Code Validators

HTML Validator W3C: http://validator.w3.org/NetMechanic, WebDesignGroup

CSS Validatorhttp://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

SMIL Validatorhttp://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

Things to consider

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/