RE: Remote usability testing with disabled people

Julie and all,

Excellent discussion and very valid points. I agree with the statement Greg outlined. You need a combination of both. A end-user tester should be describing why they are having issues in generic terms and the test coordinator should be probing to ensure they understand the barriers. The user pool should be ranging from people with poor skills to advance. Stating the obvious, everyone has different technical skills with computers. The other pool is of those who have accessibility skills.  Again, there will be a range of expertise here as well. Identifying the different disabilities is a sub-set of the relevant pools.

Julie’s and Greg’s approach of having voluntary people in a database that can do face-to-face or remote testing internationally is a good idea. I can see companies using the service to ask for a specific style of tester. The profiles of these users would have to be built to make this work and this is the true challenge. How do you determine a person’s skill set?


In relation to remote testing for a generic user, how do you validate the user is performing the set of tests you want and they understand the related product? Such as:

·        How do you monitor their methodology of using the page or sub-section of the page/UI?

·        How do you track their method of using the page with their related technology?

·        How do you verify the issue is related to the page, their usage of the assistive technology  or their technical skill set?

·        If a user finds an issue and they cannot clearly explain the problem what method is used to confirm if the issue is valid? This from my personal experience is the most challenging. As the average user doesn’t understand the terminology or care. So if they come across a problem, they might not explain it in an effective means with the risk of the issue being dismissed.

Still this is a good concept and I am very interested in assisting or finding out more.



Sean Murphy
Accessibility Software engineer
seanmmur@cisco.com
Tel: +61 2 8446 7751       Cisco Systems, Inc.
The Forum 201 Pacific Highway
ST LEONARDS
2065
Australia
cisco.com
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From: Juliette [mailto:piazza.juliette@gmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, 26 February 2017 12:19 AM
To: w3c-wai-ig@w3.org
Subject: Remote usability testing with disabled people

Hello,

I launched,  Inclusight<http://www.inclu-sight/>, a startup that provides disabled participants for user testings. After providing for a while, disabled participants for face-to-face user testing, I figured out this was not the best solution. It's not convenient at all for disabled people as they need to travel and to plan the session a long time in advance. And when they start the testing, they figure out they cannot use their own familiar configurations. It's also a pain for user researchers who, on top of that, are not always aware of how is it to work with disabled people.
That's how I came up with the ambition of offering remote usability testings for disabled people. At this stage, I am looking for professionals willing to share with me their experience in doing remote user testing with vulnerable or disabled people. I want to understand how you could make the most benefit from Inclusight.
I am looking forward to hearing from user researchers, web accessibility experts or any other professionals.
Kind Regards,
--
Juliette