Eyes on the user experience (user-testing websites with real people)
Notes from a presentation by Optimal Usability at Write Limited in Wellington, New Zealand on 25 November 2011.
Whippet into shape - Inclusive design with Lisa Herrod
Notes from the Webstock workshop “Inclusive design: Accessible user experiences on the web” run by Lisa Herrod, 17 February 2010.
The workshop was divided into two parts:
- Role-based design: a new approach to inclusive design
- Inclusive design research methods
Inclusive design - a brand new methodology. The workshop looked at the following inclusive design techniques:
- heuristic and expert reviews
- design walkthroughs
- personas and recruiting
- user testing (scenarios and tasks)
Results from a brief survey of workshop participants - only 10% of workshop respondents incorporate user experience into their web designs.
Checklists are good for user testing. The role of the practitioner is integral. By using inclusive design, individuals can implement without a UX strategy; more efficient and cost effective.
Your experience on this website is important - it is about being inclusive.
The New Zealand Government Web Standards and WCAG 2.0 are invaluable tools for checkpoint testing. Samples from WCAG 2.0 were used for the assigning success criteria activity in checking role relevance in a work environment.
Benefits - compliance checks take less time; sites are better prepared for user testing; more roles can be involved. We need to take a more inclusive approach to design and development.
Heuristic reviews - “Design guidelines” - a set of guidelines pertaining to the site, using a series of checkpoints, for example, have a section of checklists just about accessibililty. This can be done at any stage of the development.
Expert reviews - task based. Expert users - e.g. users with disabilities, such as those who would use a screen reader.
Wireframes - these can be used to get users to walk through a task. The participants looked at the original wireframes of the State Library of New South Wales (2007) and the current design (2010). Workshop participants discussed accessibility issues from different role perspectives - content writer, front end developer, visual designer, scripting, user experience, server side development, mulitmedia, project manager/business analyst.
Focus on specific access issues, e.g. device independence. Use personas with disabilities. Role play! (deaf/captions; blind/screen reader).
Recommended screen reader - NVDA which is open source and developed in Australia.
Use of the link “Read more” with screen readers - if it is in context, the link “Read more” can be used. Discussions are continuing around the use of the “Read more” link.
Participant discussion - a designer used to use the Title attribute to contain extra information on the “Read more” link. But discovered that screen readers often don’t read the Title tag and will only read the “Read more” link. A way around this was to use the <span> tag and hide the <span> in the CSS.
Recruiting - use a specialist agent or recruit from a specific audience, such as blind users or people who use assistive technology.
Set up tasks that target a specific area of the site, e.g. the navigation (for assistive technology use) or the search function. Otherwise, set up a general list of tasks.
Are these problems or barriers? How to overcome them?
- budget
- time - this can be saved by breaking down the process and using checklists
- knowledge
- guidelines are sufficient…?
Call it “User Experience” and identify checkpoints relevant to your role, identify other roles you need to work with, and assign success criteria (checkpoints).
Follow Lisa on Twitter @scenariogirl
