Results of evaluation

Hi,
This is the first of 8 messages reporting the results of the first stage of
our evaluation of the Guidelines with page authors who adapted web pages
according to the Guidelines. The second stage is about to begin in which
blind people will be asked to evaluate the pages created in the first
stage.

Below is some background information on the participants and the task they
performed.  We will start new threads to report our findings regarding the
following aspects: navigation, examples, priorities, audience, and other
general comments.

Background information:
From both observations of participants and participants' opinions, this
study has identified several aspects of the Guidelines in which
improvements could be made.

This first part of the study involved 12 participants who all had
experience of creating web pages.  They were all university students,
except one who was a school pupil.  The students were from a range of
disciplines: 6 from Computer Science; 3 from Psychology; 1 from Humanities;
and 1 from Engineering.  The average age was 23 (range of 14 - 35).

The participants' experience of creating web pages ranged from a few
personal pages to large personal sites, or having been employed to create
larger sites for organisations.  The number of pages they had previously
created ranged from 4 to over 100, with an average of 37.

The tasks were distributed as follows: 6 worked with tables-plus-images, 2
with forms, 2 with frames, and 2 with imagemaps.

The average time spent on the whole task, including reading the Guidelines
in advance, was just over 3 hours.  The average time spent reading was just
over 1 hour, and the average time spent performing the adaptation task was
just under 2 hours.

We look forward to hearing your comments on the issues that will be posted
in new threads.

Regards,

Chetz and Helen.

-----
Chetz Colwell and Helen Petrie,
<c.g.colwell@herts.ac.uk>, <h.l.petrie@herts.ac.uk>.
Sensory Disabilities Research Unit,
University of Hertfordshire,
UK.
Tel: +44 1707 284629
Fax: +44 1707 285059

Received on Saturday, 13 March 1999 07:39:20 UTC