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Little is known about cognitive web accessibility. This presentation gives insight into a cognitive web accessibility research study and gives recommendations and ideas in approaching web accessibility for users with cognitive and learning disabilities.
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Insights into Cognitive Web Accessibility
Jared Smithhttp://webaim.org
Cognitive and learning disabilities are complex
• Memory• Problem-solving• Attention• Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension• Math comprehension• Visual comprehension
Principles
Cognitive disability is not a binary state
Principles and techniques that ensure content is as widely available as possible to people with
cognitive and learning disabilities
Cognitive Web Accessibility
Previous research is sparse and disparate
It’s a very diverse population
Recommendations for one disability may disadvantage another
Cognitive and learning disabilities have been largely unaddressed in guidelines
Very Difficult! Why?
•Create an automated web accessibility evaluation tool, similar to WAVE, for cognitive accessibility.
• Focus on K-12 students
•Provide insight into cognitive and learning disability and web accessibility
WebAIM’s Project
•Cognitive accessibility principles that are...
•broadly applicable
•of interest and use to web developers
•machine testable
Our Goal
• Literature review•Broadly applicable
•Developer survey•Of interest to web developers
•Analysis•Machine testable
•User testing•Verify applicability and relevance
Our Process
• Font size•Headings• Images• Line length• Lists•Multimedia•Reading level• Search• Serif vs. sans-serif text
Elements Analyzed
•Matched Pairs•Tried to isolate the element being
analyzed•Measured efficiency, effectiveness, and
satisfaction/ease•8 grade 6-12 students with cognitive or
learning disabilities
User Testing
Small font sizevs
slightly above average font size
Larger text was more efficient, effective, and satisfying in nearly all cases
Images paired with text content vs.
text content alone
Images paired with text content vs. text content alone
7 out of 8 were more efficient and more satisfied with images
Line Length
Short (~25 characters)vs.
average (~75 characters)vs.
long (~120 characters)
All subjects took longer on the long line length pages. Little difference between short and
average.
Line Length
Students perceived the long line length page as being shorter than the others and reported it as
being easiest...
...but it actually took them much longer to read it.
Multimedia
Seven of the eight students were more efficient and also expressed more user satisfaction from
the page with the video instructions than the one with written instructions.
•Headings
• Students were slightly more efficient without headings. Though the short subject matter likely affected this.
• Students sometimes did not read headings
• Lists
• Student preferred the page with lists, but were no more efficient with them.
Less conclusive
• Reading level• No marked difference (though a very short
sample)• Search
• Spelling proved difficult.• They took time to choose “the one” correct
search result (probably a factor of the testing)• Serif vs. Sans-serif
• No marked difference• Many other studies show no difference in WEB
readability or comprehension, but significant differences in satisfaction.
Less conclusive
Initial Findings and Observations
Perceived difficulty may have a bigger impact than actual difficulty
Perceived difficultyPage with larger text appeared shorter
(though it wasn’t) and was thus perceived as easier.
Was the page more efficient because of large text or because it was perceived as
easier???
Perceived difficulty
Make your page LOOK easy
Initial Findings and Observations
Confirmation for confidence
Confirmation for confidence
Students spent a lot of time finding THE ONE correct answer.
Search results were overwhelming.
Confirmation for confidence
It wasn't a matter of finding the correct answer, it was a matter of choosing the correct answer.
Make your pages simple and intuitive. Provide error recovery
mechanisms.
Initial Findings and Observations
Distractions
Distractions
Keep visual aids clean, simple, and complementary
to the content
Initial Findings and Observations
Self-paced
Self-paced
Multimedia introduces a specific timing element. Can users keep up?
A transcript, a prominent pause feature, and an ability to quickly rewind or replay the video allow users to use multimedia
at their own pace.
Initial Findings and Observations
Consistency and organization
Consistency and organization
While organizational elements (headings, lists, etc.) can help
accessibility, they should be clearly differentiable from other elements.
Consistency and organization
Consistency and organization
The “Science of Hockey” section was nearly invisible to some students. Some never found it
after minutes of reading the page.
It was a parallel item to the other sports, but was not presented consistently.
Much more work needs to be done in this area
Questions and Discussion
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