Re: Fw: Accessibility humanized

On 21 Aug, david poehlman wrote:

> Accessibility humanized
> A user-centred approach to web accessibility

  [snip]

> possible: "A bad website in terms of accessibility." Our blind
> accessibility tester evaluated the site with his screen reader and was fairly
> pleased. He praised the site for being well-structured and didn't find any severe
> accessibility problems, though he had problems here and there. While

  This is indeed disturbing - but, in my view, from a different angle
  than the article author probably intended.

  I would like to know what the blind accessibility tester -
  let us call him NN - evaluated - the overall probability that user X,
  regardless of ability and equipment, could get to the information
  he/she required, or how well *NN* could get to the same information
  with his abilities and his equipment ?

  Those two issues are vastly different. We can only speculate, as we do
  not have access to either the test methodology or the raw data. Did
  NN, for instance, use equipment he was accustomed to, configured as he
  prefers it ? Has he, subconsciously, taught himself how to compensate
  for site problems ? Did he focus on only his own disabilities ? Did he
  test for other peoples physical realities ? If so, how ?

  These questions are part of why it isn't necessarily a good idea to
  automatically trust the "blind accessibility tester" any further than
  the "acessibility expert", and why user testing can give the entirely
  wrong results.

  This article, as a whole, is fairly disturbing to me. It would take
  more time than I have currently to refute it.


-- 
 -    Tina Holmboe                    Greytower Technologies
   tina@greytower.net                http://www.greytower.net/
   [+46] 0708 557 905

Received on Saturday, 21 August 2004 13:13:10 UTC