Re: for content review: Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility

Shawn,

Ref:
"Include as broad a variety of users with different disabilities as you can,
and avoid the pitfall of only including people who are blind."
Comment:
 As noted in the Change log, "involve" is better than include.
About including people who are blind:
There is research that indicates that vision impaired and blind users are
the most challenged of Web surfers because of the highly visual nature of
Web content.[1] Task completion rates are low and times  required is high
for these users. So the sample of PWD might include more of these users.
Blind users depend on both adaptations : keyboard for input and text output
through speech/Braille. Catering for accessibility needs of blind users
solves access problems of some other PWD groups as well. This is noted in
WCAG 1 too: "each accessible design choice generally benefits several
disability groups". Therefore testing with blind users might uncover larger
number of accessibility barriers than testing with any other group. So I
caution against saying"pitfall of only including people who are blind".  The
word "only" is the key here and I am afraid ifthe document user
interprets"blind user" as the key words in this statement, it will be to the
detriment of     blind testers / accessibility  enthusiasts.
[1] Disabled Users and The Web

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9610.html

Sailesh Panchang
Senior Accessibility Engineer
Deque Systems (www.deque.com)
11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #400
Reston VA 21091
E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
Tel: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)