© Simeon Keates 2009 Usability with Project Lecture 6 – 25/09/09 Dr. Simeon Keates.

© Simeon Keates 2009

Usability with ProjectLecture 6 – 25/09/09Dr. Simeon Keates


Exercise – part 1

Each group will be assigned a type of website• Group 1 – car rental sites (e.g. Avis, hertz, alamo, budget)• Group 2 – airline flight booking sites (e.g. flysas, virginatlantic, ba, sterling)• Group 3 – travel insurance sites (e.g. columbusdirect)• Group 4 – luggage (e.g. tumi)• Group 5 – clothing (e.g. versace, lacoste)• Group 6 – news sites (e.g. CNN, BBC)• Group 7 – social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Myspace)

You must look at a minimum of 3 sites

For each website, use CynthiaSays (http://www.contentquality.com/) to examine the reported accessibility of each site


Exercise – part 2

Use Nielsen’s heuristics from last week’s exercises to estimate the usability of each site

Question: Is there any relationship (correlation) between the overall usability and accessibility of the sites (as measured here)?

Prepare a 5 minutes presentation for Friday morning with your answer to the above question

No report needed for this exercise!


Exercise - Presentations

Over to you…


Accessibility and Usability


Results from Wednesday’s exercise

Sites with high accessibility and high usability• Most often non-profit organisations• or• Companies with a strong user-focus

Sites with low accessibility and high usability• Brands that are image-conscious

Sites with low accessibility and low usability• Should be going out of business!• Unless they have a compelling product…

(Note: Written before seeing the presentations!)


Results from Wednesday’s exercise

Sites with high accessibility and low usability• Quite rare…

Reason:• Usability is more well-known than accessibility


Relationship between accessibility and usability

Is usability a subset of accessibility?

Or vice versa?

Constantine Stephanidis (ICS-FORTH) believes accessibility must come first• Without accessibility, usability cannot be measured


Relationship between accessibility and usability (source: Keates “Designing for accessibility”)

Usability theory and practice arose from a desire to make “mainstream” products usable by “mainstream” users

Many usability approaches are fundamentally about implementing and achieving “user-centred design”• Hence the focus on design methodology so far

Accessibility is about applying those same methods and same goals, but to a broader initial set of users


Relationship between accessibility and usability

Usability

User-centred design

User-centred design

Accessibility / inclusive design


Getting to know the users


Some example users…


Impairments and Assistive Technology


O/S support for Universal Access

Let’s look at what is already built in…


Vision impairments and HCI – Examples

Access issues: Cannot use the mouse for input Cannot see the screen May need magnification May need altered colour contrast

Solutions: Screen readers / voice output Braille displays Screen magnifiers O/S settings adjustment


Simulating vision impairment

Colour blindness: http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck

Sight loss: http://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/betterdesign/downloads/

impairmentsims/index.html

Screen readers: http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/ [ http://www.freedomscientific.com/products/fs/jaws-product-page.asp ]


Auditory (hearing) impairments and HCI – Examples

Access issues: Cannot hear audio, video, system alerts or alarms

Solutions: Closed captioning (subtitles) Transcripts “Show sounds”


Simulating auditory impairment

http://www.inclusivedesigntoolkit.com/betterdesign/downloads/impairmentsims/index.html


Cognitive/learning impairments and HCI – Examples

Access issues: Difficulty reading and comprehending information Difficulty writing Difficulty recalling information

Solutions: Spell checkers Word prediction aids Reading/writing comprehensions aids Memory aids


Simulating cognitive impairment

Highly problematic!


Motor impairments and HCI – Examples

Issues: Limited or no use of hands Limited range of movement, speed and strength Tremor, etc.

Solutions: Alternate input (e.g. voice) Access keys Single switches On-screen keyboard O/S based filtering


Headstick and Minspeak


Mouthstick


Large keyboard with keyguard


Restricted movement input devices


Motor impairment in practice…


Common industry attitudes to inclusive design


Typical industrial attitudes to inclusive design - I

“We would if the final product didn’t cost any more” - the bean-counter’s model

“We would if we could just hire a consultancy to do it for us”

- the quick-fix model


Typical industrial attitudes to inclusive design - II

“That’s not our target market” - the it’s-not-our-concern model

“We don’t need to, our designers already know how to design”

- the ostrich model


Typical industrial attitudes to inclusive design - III

“We do it already - we allow wheelchair access”- the stereotype model


Typical industrial attitudes to inclusive design - IV

“We need to build the functionality first”

- the bolt-on model


Typical industrial attitudes to inclusive design - V

“There’s no call for it, sir/madam”

- the “Logan’s Run” model


£100 million+

The need for inclusive design - industrial interest - Royal Mail

200


Exercise


Exercise – part 1

Each group will be assigned a type of website• Group 1 – car rental sites (e.g. Avis, hertz, alamo, budget)• Group 2 – airline flight booking sites (e.g. flysas, virginatlantic, ba, sterling)• Group 3 – travel insurance sites (e.g. columbusdirect)• Group 4 – luggage (e.g. tumi)• Group 5 – clothing (e.g. versace, lacoste)• Group 6 – news sites (e.g. CNN, BBC)• Group 7 – social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, Myspace)

You must look at a minimum of 3 sites

For each website, use Wave ( http://wave.webaim.org/ ) to examine the reported accessibility of each site


Exercise – part 2

Question: How does Wave compare with CynthiaSays?

Now try the Vischeck colour simulator (http://www.vischeck.com/vischeck) on the same sites

And then try a screen reader (http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/)

Question: Have you changed your opinion about the overall accessibility of the sites?


Exercise – part 3

Deliverable:

Next week you will be testing your own sites

Develop a plan for how you will test your sites to make sure that they are as accessible as possible.


And finally…

Guest lecture Wednesday 10am…

© Simeon Keates 2009 Usability with Project Lecture 6 – 25/09/09 Dr. Simeon Keates.

Documents

Transcript of © Simeon Keates 2009 Usability with Project Lecture 6 – 25/09/09 Dr. Simeon Keates.