Re: for content review: Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility

Hi, Sailesh,

Thanks for the feedback. I agree with much of your statements; however, I think they are too detailed to fit within the scope of this limited document. I changed "...avoid the pitfall of only including people who are blind" to "... avoid the pitfall of only including people who are blind and assuming that covers all users with disabilities." Does that take care of your concern?

~ Shawn

Sailesh Panchang wrote:
> Shawn,
> 
> Ref:
> "Include as broad a variety of users with different disabilities as you can,
> and avoid the pitfall of only including people who are blind."
> Comment:
>  As noted in the Change log, "involve" is better than include.
> About including people who are blind:
> There is research that indicates that vision impaired and blind users are
> the most challenged of Web surfers because of the highly visual nature of
> Web content.[1] Task completion rates are low and times  required is high
> for these users. So the sample of PWD might include more of these users.
> Blind users depend on both adaptations : keyboard for input and text output
> through speech/Braille. Catering for accessibility needs of blind users
> solves access problems of some other PWD groups as well. This is noted in
> WCAG 1 too: "each accessible design choice generally benefits several
> disability groups". Therefore testing with blind users might uncover larger
> number of accessibility barriers than testing with any other group. So I
> caution against saying"pitfall of only including people who are blind".  The
> word "only" is the key here and I am afraid ifthe document user
> interprets"blind user" as the key words in this statement, it will be to the
> detriment of     blind testers / accessibility  enthusiasts.
> [1] Disabled Users and The Web
> 
> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9610.html
> 
> Sailesh Panchang
> Senior Accessibility Engineer
> Deque Systems (www.deque.com)
> 11180 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite #400
> Reston VA 21091
> E-mail: sailesh.panchang@deque.com
> Tel: 703-225-0380 (ext 105)
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Wednesday, 28 September 2005 16:08:42 UTC