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Noushin Aslam Title: Usability and Accessibility of the websites Noushin Aslam

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Page 1: Usability and Accessibility of the websites

Noushin Aslam

Title:

Usability and Accessibility of the websites

Noushin Aslam

Page 2: Usability and Accessibility of the websites

Noushin Aslam

Acknowledgements

Many Thanks to J. Elliot who has provided enormous help and guiance in order to

gain success in research project.

ABSTRACT

The emergence of the World Wide Web has allowed individuals with suitable computer

and telecommunications equipment to interact as never before. This cyberspace junction

of data, computers, networks, and multimedia presents exciting challenges to interface

designers.

It has become an essential part of our lives such as point of sale in a supermarket, online

banking and e-commerce or a word processor in an office all have become a primary and

essential part of life. Most of us at sometime or other have experienced difficulty and

frustration when trying to use the technology. In many cases much time and energy has

been used and lives have been lost in the struggle.

“However, this “new technology frontier” has also created

enormous roadblocks and barriers for people with

disabilities.

This report discusses specific issues, suggests potential solutions and seeks assistance

required to design a Web interface, which is easily accessible by everyone including

people with disabilities. HCI guidelines and principles will be discussed to develop and

enhance web usability.

Critical evaluation HCI guidelines will be carried out to enquire whether they provide

complete success in terms of usability standards.

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Table of Contents

Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... 3

1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 4

1.2 Aim ...................................................................................................................... 5

1.3 Objectives ............................................................................................................ 5

1.3.1. Importance of usability. ................................................................................. 5

2. Literature Review....................................................................................................... 6

2.1 Web _ Accessibility ............................................................................................. 9

3. Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 17

4. Recommendations .................................................................................................... 17

5. Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 18

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1. Introduction

A computer system which allows users to carry out particular tasks

Safely

Effectively

Efficiently and

Enjoyable!

These aspects are known as usability.

Usability is the most successful factor in any web page design as it measures is about how

easy a website to navigate and understand. Websites are a crucial source of information

in

particular, the World Wide Web enables global distribution of products and services

through websites.

Accessibility is about catering people with disabilities, HCI studies have ‘evoked many

difficult problems and elegant solutions’, yet unfortunately there are hundreds of

examples of websites which have failed to provide good usability and disadvantaged

many users to access important information.

Therefore government as well as hci studies have established guidelines and accessibility

laws (Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - Word) in order to ensure the accessibility of

websites for different users. Hence, website developers need to think what should be

done.

"In the past, designers were constrained by what could be done; now designers

can think about what should be done." (Eberts, 1994).

The following are aims and objectives of the this report

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Noushin Aslam

1.2 Aim

The aim of the report is to investigate usability and accessibility issues of websites.

Highlight importance of web usability, most importantly to provide possible solutions

and outline ways in which to specify and design more usable interface.

1.3 Objectives

To identify major issues with usability and accessibility of websites.

Investigate web accessibility for people with special needs.

Explore HCI guidelines for web interfaces and Conduct critical analysis of HCI

guidelines

Highlight accessibility law for web interfaces. .

Suggest potential Solutions for problems encountered.

1.3.1. Importance of usability. Number of internet users is increasing day by day which has increased importance of

web usability. A system which is easy to use and access can improve everyday work life as

computers are almost part of every job.

(Jenny preece) highlights a Well designed computer systems with good usability can

Improve the performance of the work

Improve the quality of life

Make the world a safer and enjoyable place to live in.

Faults with the usability of the system can sometime cause disasters and lead to

unpredictable incidents.

“In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, some members of

the US Congress blamed the inadequacies of user interfaces for the failure to

detect the terrorists” (Shneiderman and Plaisant 2005)

There are many Reasons for ensuring website accessibility such as

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As noted by W3C (2003a):

“the Web is becoming a key resource for:

• news, information, commerce, entertainment,

• classroom education, distance learning,

• job searching, workplace interaction,

• Community participation, government services.

It is displacing traditional sources of information and interaction –

• schools, libraries, print materials, discourse of the workplace;

• some of the traditional resources were accessible; some not”.

Therefore it has become crucial for website designers and developers to consider

different users and priorities usability and accessibility of computer systems

especially for websites.

There are more than 50 million disabled people in Europe (TAP 1997, cf. Dix et al

2004, BCS 2000). Most websites around the world are failing a basic accessability

standard which means all these people are suffering to advantage from the benefits

of the World Wide Web. The designers need to focus on users rather than the actual

system.

“Users share common capabilities but are individuals with differences, which

should not be ignored” (Dix et al 2004 p 11)

2. Literature Review

Due to the rapid growth of World Wide Web in the recent past, 'usability' has emerged as

problems of concern to the researchers.

“recognise lack of usability when we encounter it, even though we may not label

it as such.” [Dix, et al 1998].

Usability ensures that regardless of how, when, or where your users enter your website,

they will be able to use it “efficiently, effectively, and satisfactorily.”

Faulkner (2000) explains usability in simple and easy terms, “How easy it is to learn or

use a system”

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Human computer interaction is the study and the practice of usability. (it is about

understanding and creating software and systems which people will want to use and will

find effective when used).

It is the resource of communication between the user and the computer.

Thus, the objective of human computer interface design is to increase the usability of the

system, in order to help users reach acceptable performance levels.

The following section will highlight the major usability problems with current websites.

Through the research it has been found that the main reason for many websites to fail

usability tests is problems like pitiable navigation systems and lack of user’s

understandings of the system.

Fourth international conference on software engineering research, management and

applications, proceedings: revealed. 2006 “Large web systems are being made so complex

that often the users have to make excessive amount of 'navigational efforts' to complete

their tasks. We identify certain -aspects which aggravate the 'navigational burden' of a

user. Vital amongst them are, complex navigational structure of web, unfamiliarity of

users with the website, and disagreement between the research community and

practitioners.”

The user interface design process focuses on understanding users and their individual

differences. Therefore, designers really need to focus on different individuals’ needs as

most of us suffer from usability problems such as finding your way around and waiting a

lot of time understanding the structure of the website. The author believes it is very

frustrating for the user to not be able to accomplish a particular task or find important

information in reasonable amount of time. Many people rely on internet for important

information e.g. it has been reported that 80% of adult Internet users have accessed it for

general health information. Sillence .E (2005)

Survey results – “on average 5.1 hours per week wasted by people trying to use their

machines…users waste more time in front of computers than on highways”

(Shneiderman 2002 p 25)

Nielsen (2000) argues for the importance of web usability:

• Many web sites – estimated 100 million

– Hence users have much choice, and will leave a site very rapidly if they

cannot work out how to use it

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Therefore designer must focus on user needs.

Lack of consistency is another major reason which creates barriers for different users

to learn or use a system. The author believes consistency and simplicity is the key to

develop a successful user interface. However, it has been argued that consistency can be

regarded as a usability category in its own right, with many of the other usability

principles appearing in support of consistency [Dix, et al 1998].

Enormous number of websites shows lack of consistency such as major problems

encountered with evaluated website (Leeds met university) are navigation and

consistency.

Common interface design problems that affect individuals when accessing websites are

noted by Vassallo (2003) and include:

• small fonts;

• poor contrast backgrounds (either too low or too high);

• large blocks of text;

• cluttered pages;

• animated images or blinking/moving text;

• automated page or form redirects;

• fully justified text (resulting in uneven spacing between words); and

Wordy and confusing use of English

This means most of the websites are produced by designers which are not fully aware of

HCI evaluation techniques and process of user interface design and are unable to

differentiate between individuals’ needs and expectations from the system. The author

suggests that these issues could have been addresses by carrying out early evaluation with

users to ensure that the system is designed to meet their needs.

“Usability is often the most neglected aspect of web sites, yet in many respects it is the

most

Important” (Nielsen, 2001).

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2.1 Web _ Accessibility

Since the mid 1990s, hundreds of articles and design resources have been produced to

increase accessibility. Still Millions of people with disabilities are surfing the Internet

every day and large number of websites are failing to cater people with disabilities

Ninety seven percent of websites did not provide even minimum levels of

accessibility standards for people with disability, a new survey has found. Can be

found here http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6210068.stm

There are several reasons why accessibility is a key issue such as a large proportion of

our population require special needs. The above information also concludes that many

designers an organisation have not considered DDA 1995 so designer must consider

usability and accessibility of website to make it legally right according to DDA 1995.

Author believes the designers are failing to understand the needs of disable users even

there is a large number of audiences with special needs;

9% males are colour blind in Uk.

B-t estimate 10% of people is disable

11.5 million People in Europe with partial sight

1.1 million Users are blind in Europe (TAP 1997)

HCI literature enforces cognitive, physical and social issues related to people with special

needs should be considered to increase website accessibility for as many people as

possible.

The cognitive issues e.g. does user know the system or physical issues such as if user is

visually impaired or hearing problems must be considered as large number of the

individuals have hearing impairments, Physical impairments and visual impairments.

“As humans … we have certain limitations, both cognitive and physical. Products

designed to support humans should take these limitations into account.” (Preece

et al 2002,).

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Therefore every website must provide accessibility to as many individuals as possible to

make sure that people with disabilities are not left behind.

"The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential

aspect." - Tim Berners-Lee, director and inventor of the World Wide Web (W3C, 2003a)

The author believes there is an extreme need to provoke understanding of HCI

evaluation methodologies and guielines. The W3 standards have also developed website

accessibility guidelines for people to improve HCI to cater people with special needs.

Many website lack websites lacks features such as resizable fonts, images with proper text

descriptions, and easy navigation, these people will not be able to access your

information. The survey results (reported by BBc 25 December 2006) below illustrate the

major problems which make website inaccessible for a large proportion of our

population.

93% failed to provide adequate text descriptions for graphics

73% relied on JavaScript for important functionality

78% used colours with poor contrast, causing issues for those with colour

blindness

98% did not follow industry web standards for the programming code

97% did not allow people to alter or resize pages

89% offered poor page navigation

87% used pop-ups causing problems for those using screen magnification

software

Social reasons – organisations should feel grateful to be socially responsible and work

towards removing discrimination and promoting human rights (HREOC, 2002). This

will help making their website accessible every individuals, including those with

disabilities.

Economic / business reasons – it does not make economic sense for organisations to

exclude 10% of potential customers who may have a disability (HREOC, 2002). An

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inaccessible site may result in users with disabilities leaving for competitor sites or

switching to more expensive options, such as call centers and walk-in branches.

“While a program’s design and technology affects its overall capability

and performance, as far as the user is concerned, the user interface is

the program. If the user interface isn’t good, the program isn’t good”

(McKay 1999 p xvi)

What needs to be considered by designers?

The author believes greater effort is needed to provoke awareness of techniques and

guidelines developed by HCI theory to improve accessibility and usability of websites

.Most poorly designed website suffers from a lack of awareness and focus on users so

designers need to consider

who they are, what they want, how they work, and how they really use computers. To

improve Human computer Interface designers need, designers need to do research,

explore literature, and evaluate and test website designs with there targeted audience.

A focus on users—developing with users

and not for them—has become central to quality software

and Web design today. Figure 1 (Mandel, 1997)

Users should be involved in all phases of the

Design and development process.

Design iteratively with many cycles of ‘design’ – evaluate with users – ‘redesign’

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Paper Prototypes-

HCI suggests using Paper Prototypes; -the author believes these should be use at early

stage of evaluation such as producing designs on paper then directly evaluate and discuss

it with. Paper based prototypes such as storyboards are quick cheap and easy to make

and amend.

A common response from programmers after receiving an accessibility evaluation is that

it would have been much easier to incorporate the requested changes at the beginning of

the site development lifecycle

Robert Bailey 2005 argues Most existing sets of web design guidelines tend to be loosely

linked to research so reason, designers tend to struggle in deciding how seriously they

should consider each of the guidelines. Therefore designers need to apply suitable

guidelines very intelligently to improve accessibility.

Bailey [1996] suggests that it is the designers, who should be held responsible for

reduced human performance,

particularly if ‘poor design decisions resulted from ignorance of human performance

technology’. Therefore, to

improve performance, designers must know what factors affect it [Mayhew 1992].

Consistency

Enforce and maintain consistency thought designs as this will increase learnability of the

system and help user to understand structure of website easily.

It has been stated that consistency is one of the basic principles of usability [Dix, et al

1998] that can be used to improve human performance.

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Culture

It is suggested that in order to design an interface that is fully consistent to the user, the

designer needs to accommodate

cultural dimensions as well as the user profile variables into the design of the user

interface. This is supported by many

authors, including Marcus [2001],

Legislation

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 - Word (the DDA), was introduced with the

intention of comprehensively tackling the discrimination which many disabled people

face. The part of the DDA that states websites must be made accessible came into force

on 1 October 1999 and the Code of Practice for this section of the Act was published on

27 May 2002.

This was to make sure that all users have equal right to avantage facilitation of World

Wide Web including people disabilities. However 90% of the websites have failed

accessibility standards and

Guidelines for web development

HCI suggests one approach to addressing the complexity is to follow a set of guidelines

or principles. Sutcliff claims (1995) guidelines have met limited success. Author believes

this could be another reason for many websites to fail usability and accessibility which

have been envelope incorporation with different guielines..

Guidelines

Some terminological disagreement in the literature, eg we get “principles”, “guidelines”,

“rules”.

“principle” = high level advice that can be applied widely (Preece 1994)

eg know the user population reduce cognitive load

engineer for errors

“Guideline” = lower level, more specific, needs no interpretation, eg “make the title

upper case 14 point Times New Roman”

The following are critical review of guidelines developed by different HCI experts.

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Shneiderman’s “eight golden rules” of interface design (Shneiderman and

Plaisant (2005) p 74):

1 strive for consistency

2 enable frequent users to take shortcuts

3 offer informative feedback

4 design dialogues to yield closure

5 offer simple error handling

6 permit easy reversal of actions

7 support internal locus of control

8 reduce short-term memory load

Critical Review

In the light of Hci theory and literature review of usability and accessibility websites it

appears that shniederman has not suggested anything in particular for people with special

needs.

Mandel’s (2005) three “golden rules of interface design”:

1 place users in control

2 example sub-principle - “allow users to directly manipulate interface objects”

3 reduce users’ memory load

4 example sub-principle - provide visual cues

5 make the interface consistent

6 example sub-principle - keep interaction results the same

Critical Review

The mandel suggests “Allow user to directly manipulte the interface objects”, it is

impossible to put user in control as every user has different needs.

Sutcliffe’s (1995) seven principles derived from HIP research:

1 Consistency

Be consistent across tasks. Screens etc.

Reduces learning load and increases recognition

2 Compatibility

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Aim for good fit between user’s expectations and reality of and interface design

Have new designs compatible with user’s previous experience

3 Predictability

Interface should suggest to the user what actions are possible

Hence need appropriate messages, prompts, icons....

Aids users in their planning

4 Adaptability

Interface should adapt to its individual user

5 Economy and error prevention

Aim for minimum number of steps to achieve a task

Consider dialogue short cuts

Help user avoid disastrous errors (“Are you sure? Y/N”)

6 User control

User should be and feel in control - relates to predictability

“Undo” is important aspect

7 Structure

8 Structure interfaces to reduce complexity.

Critical Review

The sutcliffe’s rule one “Be consistent across tasks”.

contraicts with rule “Interface should adapt to its individual user”

as it is not possible to make a system which is comletely consistent and then allow

adpatbility. E.gif a user makes changes to the system it will not be consistent through

out.

Noushin’s Theory

Such design is an important aspect of “universal design” – defined by Dix et al (2004, p.

366) as “the process of designing products so that they can be used by as many people as

possible in as many situations as possible”.

Noushin’s theory has been developed in corporation with shniederman, Mandal and

universal guidelines in order to increase usability and accesability for as many people as

possible.

Universal design involves these areas of human diversity: people with disabilities,

older people, children, cultural differences.

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Seven general principles of universal design have been proposed:

1 Equitable use – no user is excluded

2 Flexibility in use - design accommodates a wide range of individual preferences and

abilities

3 Simple and Intuitive Use - use of the design is easy to understand, regardless of the

user's experience, knowledge, language skills, or current concentration level.

4 Perceptible Information - the design communicates necessary information effectively to

the user, regardless of ambient conditions or the user's sensory abilities.

5 Tolerance for Error - the design minimizes hazards and the adverse consequences of

accidental or unintended actions.

6 Low Physical Effort - the design can be used efficiently and comfortably and with a

minimum of fatigue.

7 Size and Space for Approach and Use - appropriate size and space is provided for

approach, reach, manipulation, and use regardless of user's body size, posture, or

mobility.

8 Present only relevant information, in a simple manner

9 strive for consistency

10 enable frequent users to take shortcuts

11 offer informative feedback

12 design dialogues to yield closure

13 offer simple error handling

14 permit easy reversal of actions

15 support internal locus of control

16 reduce short-term memory load

17 Compatibility

Aim for good fit between user’s expectations and reality of and interface design

Have new designs compatible with user’s previous experience.

18 Structure interfaces to reduce complexity.

19 Maintain simplicity to reduce complexity (Google is the successful example of a

simple interface.

These guidelines will allow designer to increase accessibility and solve most problems.

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3. Conclusion

It has been found that a greater effort is required to provoke awareness of HCI and

Guielines. The designers need to apply right guidelines intelligently and keep main focus

on users. There is a need to provoke more awareness of needs of people with disabilities

as they are large proportion of our population and most of the websites do not cater for

people with special needs. The Government should ensure stricter enforcement on

accessibility law such as DDA, 1995 and clamp down on every organisation providing

services through the internet who do not abide by this law. Through research findings

and HCI literature a new set of guidelines have been proposed in order to help website

designers to create website which are easily usable and accessible by everyone including

people with special needs.

4. Recommendations

In the light of research a new Noushin’s Theory has been developed to help designer

including universal guidelines to make sure people from all different background cultures

and special needs are not excluded. The author recommends to critically reviewing HCI

guidelines for a specific system within corporation with user requirements.

o Carryout Early stage user evaluation, focusing on the users and the users’ needs.

o Involve users in all stages of design

o Make every website legal by DDA 1995

To expand specific disability guidelines use W3 schools accessibility guidelines

http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/

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