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Accessibility Testing For Usability

Accessibility Testing for Usability

Is your website or mobile app accessible? Did you follow the W3C Guidelines, but want to ensure your site actually works as intended? Usability testing helps ensure the code matches the real-life experience.

What Is Accessibility on the Web?

Accessibility for the web refers to making your website work for all users and technologies. For example, if you are selling a product online, does your shopping cart work for the 20% of consumers who have disabilities?

You can see the full Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by visiting this link (but be warned, they’re a little technical).

What Is Accessibility Testing?

Accessibility Testing can be thought of as QA for the usability of your site. It refers to the process of someone going through your site to determine if it works as intended.

Why Conduct Accessibility Testing?

Complying with written guidelines is great, but is it actually usable? What does an end-user experience?

Accessibility Testing provides many benefits for your business.

It can help you:

  • Increase your bottom line: Making your site available to more users will lead to a larger base of potential users and more money for you.
  • Do the right thing: Everyone should have access to content on the internet they wish to see no matter how they interact with it.
  • Keep above compliance. By all means, please work to comply with guidelines, but know that compliance is not enough. Remember the movie Office Space? It’s the “bare minimum, do you want to just do the bare minimum?”

    • How Can Dave Help?

    While user testing is a standard part of UX, this testing can become more difficult when it comes to accessibility. If you do not have people with disabilities checking your website, it is hard to know if there are stumbling blocks disrupting your usability.

    As a blind person and 25-year screen reader veteran, I’m able to offer trusted, first-hand feedback on the usability of your website or mobile (iOS) application. I’ll poke around using my screen reader and check out different pages, forms, and features throughout your site or app. I’ll assess and report on how accessible the software really is to a blind website user. You can think of me as a specialty QA engineer.

    Some Things I Can Assess Include:

  • Heading structure.
  • Alternative text for images.
  • Link naming and labeling.
  • Navigational landmarks.
  • Checking your contact form.
  • Log-ons.
  • Sign-ups.
  • Your shopping cart.

    • What I Don’t Do

    While I understand the WCAG 2.1 Guidelines in W3C Guidelines, I am not a technical wizard.

    I don’t do coding and I won’t present results in convoluted development speak. I will offer approachable, real-life feedback on the experience for a website user.

    I deliver reports in plain English, so you don’t have to wade through confusing accessibility language. I can deliver a written report, screen recording, or even a voice memo.

    Stop. Look. & Listen.

    I use the Stop. Look. Listen. model in other areas of my business, and it applies to Accessibility Testing, too.

    Stop: See if your website can reach all users.
    Look: Look at what you want your website visitors to do.
    Listen: Listen to feedback on whether your visitors can use your site the way you expect.

    When To Call Dave

  • If you’ve built a website according to guidelines, but you haven’t tested it.
  • If you’ve built a website according to guidelines and have tested it, but you aren’t a blind person.
  • You’re a web development company looking to test your code.
    (Catch issues early when they are cheaper to fix).
  • You’re a UX designer doing usability testing.

    • Want More Information?

    Interested in my services? Schedule a consultation to find out more about what I offer and how I can help.

    Schedule a Consultation.

    I’m Ready To Start

    Ready to dive right in? Sign up using the PayPal link below, and I’ll be in touch to get your project kicked off.