Re: Was: What would a screen reader make of this?, now: user testing

At 6:03 AM -0400 2001/6/15, Jim Tobias wrote:
>I agree with all of Marjolein's points about non-commercial sites.
>But we need to look at the reality of user testing of commercial
>sites: if it's done at all, it's done on a small scale. [...]

Well, this points out a serious problem for the web regardless of
accessibility -- this is why the web has a tendency to suck.  I think
we need to be promoting user testing with actual representative
users very strongly, both for accessibility's sake and for the sake
of general usability.

>The origin of this thread was a proposal to develop a screen reader
>simulation tool.  I accept all the criticisms we've seen here about the
>imperfection of such a tool.  But face the fact that this is the number
>two request I hear from corporate webweavers.

How about (RIP Len) WAVE?  How about IBM Home Page Reader?  Both of
these I recommend as excellent tools for sighted folks to spot web
accessibility problems which could hamper screen reader users, but
of course they will be limited.

I don't know why you would need a "screen reader simulation" when you
could instead just run a "a screen reader".  Both will give you about
the same results (and as I argued before, those results will be
inadequate compared to user testing).

--Kynn
-- 
Kynn Bartlett <kynn@reef.com>
Technical Developer Liaison
Reef North America
Accessibility - W3C - Integrator Network
Tel +1 949-567-7006
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Received on Friday, 15 June 2001 11:25:16 UTC