- From: Laura Carlson <laura.lee.carlson@gmail.com>
- Date: Sun, 6 Dec 2009 17:04:35 -0600
- To: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
- Cc: HTML Accessibility Task Force <public-html-a11y@w3.org>, Roger Johansson <roger@456bereastreet.com>
Hi Ian, > I should first say that it is > well-established that asking questions in usability studies leads to > results that are dramatically biased towards a supportive answer I agree with that. In formal usability tests, if a facilitator is asked for help, he or she should say that the goal is for the participant to try to solve the problems on their own. A facilitator should to stay neutral in words and body language. And they should be careful not to ask leading questions that may skew the participant's responses. But surveys are a type of usability evaluation tool [1]. They have strengths and weaknesses, as do other evaluation methods. WebAIM has conducted a couple surveys of screen reader users [2] [3]. I was thinking about a survey along those lines with questions such as Roger posed. It wouldn’t be as labor intensive as full-blown usability testing and might provide us some information... Another thought: doing one wouldn’t preclude doing the other. > Also, it's important to remember that nobody (as far as I know) is arguing > that table explanations are undesireable It is great that part of the table summary issue is now agreeable. > I'm not sure that a survey would be the best way of collecting data about > the best way to improve accessibility. I think a better way to get data > about this would be a set of usability studies of Web authors followed by > double-blind studies of the pages they write. For example, take six to > nine Web developers, and give them the task of marking up some Web pages > that include particularly complex data tables in an accessible way that is > still aesthetically pleasing to them. The developers would be split into > three groups, one being given instructions on using summary="", one being > given instructions on writing paragraphs around the table, and one being > given no instruction at all. Then, take the resulting pages, and bring in > six to nine users of assistive technologies, and randomly give each one > some of the pages created, and ask them to fill in a questionnaire based > on the data in the table. Then, a researcher who is not aware of any of > these events is asked to "grade" the questionaires, and determine which > show a better understanding of the underlying data. Interesting proposal. It has quite a few phases and variables. Best Regards, Laura [1] http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/support/Training/Online/webdesign/testing.html [2] http://www.webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey/ [3] http://www.webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey2/ -- Laura L. Carlson
Received on Sunday, 6 December 2009 23:05:11 UTC