Re: Accessibility or Usability? Was: Usability testing

Paul you are right on the money.  100 brownie points for perspective.

I have been looking into loggers for Usability studies and haven't found
the right application yet when I do I'll forward you the information.

For those of us un familiar with Usability testing a Logger can be used
to recond event as observations, in some instances capture users actions
through the application they are using and controle the recording
equipment. The information it gathers can either be exported to a
statistical package or if the logger is powerfull enough it might have a
statistical package built in.

    Joyce: I have experience in setting up low cost labs and would be
happy to answer any questions I can. I do not represent any vendors so I
won't be biased in that way.

Good Luck

The Usability issue though not precisely the same as the accessability
issue are closely related in spirit and objective. Making the widest
functionality avaliable to the widest range of people.

Lake Roca



Paul Booth wrote:

> Are we talking about testing web page accessibility or
> usability here?  I dont think that they are necessarily the
> same thing.  For example, you can have an accessible page,
> that meets all the guidelines for page accessibility, but
> with a poor information structure that makes it unusable.
>
> Likewise, some usability engineers would have you believe
> that you can have a usable site, without it meeting
> accessibility requirements.... (!)
>
> If your looking for a usability resource, a starting point
> may be: http://www.useit.com/
>
> --
> Paul Booth - Project Officer - DISinHE Centre
> Tel: +44 (0)1382 345050.   Fax: +44 (0)1382 345509.
> http://www.disinhe.ac.uk
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jamie Fox <jfox@fenix2.dol-esa.gov>
> To: Joe Night <joe.night@gateway2000.com>
> Cc: 'Web Accessibility Initiative' <w3c-wai-ig@w3.org>
> Date: 23 November 1998 23:17
> Subject: RE: Usability testing
>
> I'd use Netscape 3.x and 4.x, a version of MS Internet
> Explorer (as you
> can't have two versions on the same machine to my
> knowledge), a text browser
> such as lynx., PwWebSpeak for the voice browser and maybe
> Opera if you have
> extra time and money.  Also to be considered is the use of a
> general screen
> reader such as Jaws For Windows.  Use of tools such as bobby
> and HTML
> validators is also essential.  It might be sensible to have
> disabled users
> actually do the testing.
>
> See also:
> http://www.eeicom.com/dcwebmasters/pwd/
> http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Grid/5447/access.html
> (not yet
> refined)
>
> -Jamie Fox
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org
> [mailto:w3c-wai-ig-request@w3.org] On Behalf
> Of Joe Night
> Sent: Monday, November 23, 1998 6:06 PM
> To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
> Subject: Usability testing
>
> I need to help assemble and populate a small computer lab to
> examine web
> usability issues. This is a very large ballpark and I need
> to narrow the
> options we're going to explore.
>
> I'm seeking your opinion about what tools we should test
> with. We have to
> start someplace and picking a specific set of tools seems to
> be a
> reasonable place. I gather that there's no such thing as a
> perfect list but
> I need to put one together anyway.
>
> I'd like to hear about your opinions and preferences about
> tools if you
> care to share them. I suspect a public forum is not the best
> place to share
> these sentiments. Please respond privately so I don't get
> shot for starting
> another browser war.
>
> Regards,
> Joe Night

Received on Tuesday, 24 November 1998 14:12:20 UTC