Getting your own experience of accessibility helps you to put yourself in the shoes of others and keep accessibility in mind when designing and developing. Find out how you can easily experience accessibility for yourself using something you likely have in your pocket a smartphone.
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Experiencing digital accessibility using your smartphone (Bristol ID&D, June 2019)
8. Getting your own experience of
accessibility helps you to put
yourself in the shoes of others and
keep accessibility in mind when
building and testing your sites and
applications
Jon Gibbins, Nov 2007
57. Hyphenation
iOS
enewsletter ehneyewsleta = e njusletr (sounds Russian)
e-newsletter ee newsletter = inuzletr (correct)
Android
enewsletter eh newsletter = enuzletr (wrong e
sound)
e-newsletter ee newsletter = inuzletr (correct)
58. Compound words
Compound words are commonplace
Homepage
Sitemap
"Signup" announced as "signup" in VoiceOver iOS
Spaces and hyphens are your friends.
59. Read / Reading
Reeding vs Redding
<h2>Get reading</h2> = Get Redding
<a href="#">Read more</a> = Red more
#3: This is relatively new talk based on some old ideas.
Ive been thinking about this for around 5 years now.
It encapsulates my take on accessibility.
Digital accessibility consultant on web and mobile
Training, testing, development, UX, mentoring, policy and organisational change
Self-taught web developer since 1999
Digital accessibility since 2003
Mobile specialist since 2012
Passionate about accessibility why?
I dont have a disability as such (wears glasses, APD, bad back)
Let me tell you the story of my journey to working with accessibility in mind
Short version: Whats accessibility all about for me?
Many accessibility presentations will kick off with an explanation of what accessibility is all about, why you should be thinking about it.
Corporate Social Responsibility.
The legal aspects (Equality Act, EN 301 549, ADA, 508).
Im not going to talk about compliance or the law today, unless you ask me to.
The benefits.
Proven Return On Investment
You may have heard that the Internets biggest blind user is Google.
Accessibility is good for SEO.
Accessibility can save you time and helps make your applications more robust. No, really! Adding accessibility into applications makes automated testing easy.
Theres a good case study for the business case from Legal & General (http://www.w3.org/WAI/bcase/legal-and-general-case-study)
Developers:
Often see accessibility as having to jump through hoops for little gain.
Its such a hassle.
Why should I do it?
For me:
Its a challenge.
Its on a par with testing, security and documentation. You dont have to do it, but you should.
I think its cool!
Most importantly, Ive seen what accessibility can do.
Im going to kick off with why I do accessibility
#4: Jons earliest experience of geek
Smart watches / phones:
Jon first saw these in a book in the 80s and thought, Woah, thats pretty cool!
Technology is cool! But also enabling!
LG watch phone: 1.3 inch full touch screen, 3G+ connectivity, video call capabilities, Voice recognition software, Bluetooth v2.1 with A2DP, MP3 player.
#5: Jons first experience of accessibility a talking clock used by his blind mother.
#6: Jon has a passion for music. He plays guitar, sings, writes songs
At university, he got to work with disabled musicians to develop accessible music composition and performance software.
The point is that we need to think outside the box a little.
We need to find ways to empathise.
#9: November 2007
Started assembling my accessibility video tour.
Needs updating, but still helpful to understand how the technology is used.
https://lab.dotjay.com/notes/assistive-technology/videos/
#10: Another way to talk about accessibility is through analogies. I like analogies.
Any parents in the audience?
More on analogies:
https://dotjay.com/2007/11/analogies-for-accessibility
#11: You dont know what its like unless you experience it for yourself.
You can get an idea of what it's like from friends or family, but you don't know it until you become a parent yourself.
Experiencing assistive technology for yourself or taking part in disability simulations wont tell you what its like to be disabled.
You cannot simulate disability effectively enough to understand what it is like to live with any disability.
#12: Robin Eames on Twitter, September 2018:
https://twitter.com/robinmarceline/status/1039311147738906624
https://twitter.com/robinmarceline/status/1039321725756891136
#15: Well, yes, but no
Empathy = I feel with you = youre in a persons head and understand how they feel and what they think.
Sympathy = I feel for you = the acknowledgement of the suffering of others.
I choose to talk about empathy because disabled people don't want sympathy. They want equality.
We build better through exercising empathy rather than sympathy.
Empathy requires much more effort in order to achieve better understanding.
Some say that it is impossible, or even wrong, to aim for empathy.
Using an accessibility feature on your smartphone is going to build sympathy.
But what Im suggesting we should all do is going further to achieve better understanding.
Don Norman, May 2019 (Design thinker and researcher, co-founder of Nielsen Norman Group)
https://theblog.adobe.com/why-i-dont-believe-in-empathic-design-don-norman/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/sympathy-vs-empathy-ux/
https://www.nngroup.com/articles/empathy-mapping/
#16: Beware of lies. We want to build for everyone. But you cannot understand everyone.
I don't believe there is such as thing as fully accessible, so I try to avoid using that phrase.
It's no easy task making something accessible to every person and accommodate the way they interact with the world.
You can only do your best to make things as accessible as you can.
#17: Accessibility is not all about code or compliance; its about people.
Experiencing digital accessibility helps *build empathy* with your users, 15-20% of which have some form of disability.
[15% worldwide statistic from WHO World report on disability, 2011; 20% statistic is for England & Wales, 2011]
In 2016, around 75% of disabled people in the UK had used the internet.
In 2017, 78%.
In 2018, 80%.
Numbers are increasing, especially with cheaper means to access using mobile devices.
Difficult to estimate regular users.
Around 13% of the UK internet population have a disability.
[Click-Away Pound Survey 2016]
More:
http://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/disability/articles/nearlyoneinfivepeoplehadsomeformofdisabilityinenglandandwales/2015-07-13
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/itandinternetindustry/bulletins/internetusers/2016#25-of-disabled-adults-had-never-used-the-internet
https://www.ons.gov.uk/businessindustryandtrade/itandinternetindustry/bulletins/internetusers/2018
http://www.clickawaypound.com/cap16finalreport.html
http://fra.europa.eu/en/theme/people-disabilities
#18: Out of interest, do we have people with a disability here today?
Jon wears glasses
Jons mum went blind
Jons dad has Alzheimers disease
Jon has friends who are blind, deaf, people who are wheelchair users, people with cerebral palsy
#19: I dont know about you, but everyone I know is ageing.
As we get older, we are likely to experience multiple disabilities of different types.
#20: Who can think of their own story about accessibility?
I like to get good balance and something for everyone.
What roles do we have in the room?
How many developers? How many testers?
Who is not technical?
Who has some knowledge of accessibility?
Who has used a mobile screen reader?
WCAG?
#23: Inclusion and accessibility is about people, not laws or even just code.
#25: For me, accessibility is as important as security, or performance, or documenting your code.
#26: Vision blind, partially sighted
Hearing Deaf (capital D), deaf, hearing loss
Deaf = Deaf community sign language more likely to be first language (BSL instead of English, for example)
Motor limited movement or control
Cognitive / neurological dyslexic, autistic
#27: Disabled people dont always fall neatly into the 4 main disability types
People have diverse needs
Equally, people may use a diverse range of access tech and settings
Older users, for example, could fall into any of the above groupings (limited dexterity, hearing and vision)
Ageing
We are all subject to ageing
Spans various disabilities and user groups
Often first-time users
Note: Older people, like young children, find primary solid color easier to see and draw meaning from than pastel colors, etc.
Hidden disabilities
Often, we have images of people with extreme disabilities in mind (totally blind, amputees, wheelchair users, totally deaf, etc.)
Many of us have mild disabilities (e.g. people who wear glasses) or hidden disabilities
Dyslexia
Chronic fatigue / pain (fibromyalgia)
Epilepsy
Photo sensitivity
Temporary disability
Broken bones, e.g. someone with a broken arm cannot use a mouse.
Repetitive strain injury
Tiredness
#28: Situational limitation
Hands-free while driving.
Hearing a phone call in noisy environments.
Touch screen devices in bright light or wet weather.
Small keyboards require dexterity.
Notice the difference of limitation as opposed to disability (https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Situational_terminology)
Terms like device disabled or situational disability dilutes the definition of disability and accessibility.
Cultural inclusion
Language; not everyone understands English.
Colours have different meanings or associations all over the world. Red is often associated with stop, errors, or passion in Western cultures. In China, red can relate to celebration or good luck.
Even shape and iconography
Technology
Particular software and hardware requirements or preferences
User requirements can be diverse.
Technology issues include user preference, for a particular hardware feature, for example. You cannot account for user preference, you can only build for flexibility.
Mobile users can be limited by data allowances.
#30: Vision impairment
Uses a screen reader or screen magnifier
Physical impairment
Only use a keyboard, may use voice recognition software and/or switch access
Equally, people may use a diverse range of different access technology and settings
#31: Deaf or hard of hearing
Requires captions for audio content
#34: iOS mainly, but all this applies to Android now, and to some extent on other platforms too.
How many smartphones in pockets?
How many iOS?
How many Android?
Others?
Why am I picking out mobile accessibility here?
Easily available iOS and (most) Android devices
Quick to learn
Good way to get experience of AT
Great for quick testing on actual AT
Of particular interest to Jon mobile accessibility:
Small screens
40-pixel (7mm+) finger is big on small targets
Can be hard to reach some parts of the screen
Small text sizes is like having low vision
Small input devices
Tiny keys
Environment (hands-free, noise, rain)
Eyes-free usage, e.g. in car, is like being blind
Mainstream features with accessibility benefits
SMS
Video calls
Voice assistants, such as Siri, Cortana, etc.
FaceTime used by deaf people
Custom vibrations as ringtone equivalents
Speeches given using iPad with Proloquo
HueVue app that helps color blind people identify colors
Braille:
V-B-Reader app (Android) that enables Braille to be read using vibrating touch screens
Touch-screen Braille writer
Innovative assistive technology thats useful to all users!
Apples Siri voice recognition
Google Voices voicemail transcription
Custom vibrations (iPhone setting and Android app)
#35: Shared experiences comparable to temporary disability
in the car (blind)
at concerts (hard of hearing)
small text (low vision)
fat fingers on small screens / keyboards (hand tremors)
broken bones (crutches)
http://www.w3.org/WAI/mobile/experiences
Opportunity
For users
Cheaper technology
Easier to learn
Easier to access services
For business
Reaching as wide an audience as possible
Reaching untapped spending power
#36: Modern mobile devices have a wide variety of accessibility features built in, particularly iOS and Android.
Lets just take a look at screen readers.
#38: Well look at explore by touch first; gesture navigation is explained in the next slide. Also, more general notes about these interaction methods are in the notes on the next slide.
Explore by touch:
is spatial
requires users to become aware of the layout of a page/screen
can be tedious for general use and things can be missed by users
but is by far the best way to interact with on-screen keyboards and is a bit like touch typing
#39: Focus: Slightly different concept on mobile than on desktop.
Gesture navigation:
is sequential, typically following the reading order of a page/screen
allows users to interact with one element of a page/screen at a time, similar to how you interact with the keyboard on desktop applications
uses a virtual focus cursor, which is roughly equivalent to keyboard focus and tabbing around an interface
often makes more sense to users (provided reading order makes sense) and things are less likely to be missed
Both of these methods are now used in iOS and Android
Both methods available in iOS since iPhone OS 3 was released with the iPhone 3GS in June 2009
Android TalkBack Explore by Touch mode available since Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) in October 2011
Android TalkBack Gesture mode available since Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) in June 2012
Gesture navigation on Android does not behave in exactly the same way as VoiceOver on iOS, but it is similar
These interaction methods are becoming a de facto standard on mobile devices
#43: So, why isn't this the normal approach to accessibility?
I think disability is difficult for some people to think or talk about.
People may feel uncomfortable.
I think this is down to poor understanding, social stigmas, lack of experience.
But there are more problems at play
#44: Dont just be the accessibility guy/gal
Shared responsibility
Raise awareness
Teach
Learn
#45: Think about accessibility as early as possible
Bake it into your process, wireframes, etc.
Fix accessibility before it hits the screens
Documenting accessibility as you go will help future iterations
Accessibility more likely to:
get baked into prototypes
persist through development
make it into production at an acceptable level
#46: Accessibility in continuous integration: code linting, checks as part of release procedures, etc.
BS 8878
Not a set of development guidelines
Project management roadmap for ensuring that web products are built in an accessible way
#47: You know your work better than I do.
You understand the context better than I do.
You are better placed to find solutions.
I can guide you, but its better if you can teach yourself.
#48: Solutions are contextual accessibility is contextual. Context is King, especially on mobile.
Its not necessarily about what you know; its about knowing what to look up and where.
#49: Another reason that experiencing accessibility is important.
It helps you better understand the context.
Just look at images, which may:
Be purely decorative
Be a photo
Be a map
Be a button
Convey simple information
Convey complex information
#50: Experience is the first step towards understanding.
Without experience, poor choices are made.
Without understanding, things you design or build may be inappropriate or incoherent.
Heres an example of an incoherent.
Photo
Just because you add something accessible, doesnt mean that it makes sense.
Design stage is important for establishing context and making sense of the answers before they become problems.
#52: In short, plenty.
Guidelines are great, but
The guidelines dont tell you everything.
There are some fun things that can go wrong.
#53: Ive seen plenty of examples on the Web where following guidelines has lead to poor accessibility due to lack of understanding:
Tabindex
WAI-ARIA
#54: The guidelines dont tell you everything
Interesting things can happen with content.
Here are just a few quick examples.
#55: We have language selection in WCAG, but what about pronunciation?
Something that often gets missed is the text itself the words we use.
Clear text is essential to providing good user experiences for all users, but especially for users of assistive technology such as screen readers.
Using semantic markup helps
But screen readers can still get things wrong
Notes:
Screen reader software takes text found on screen on a website, for example and tries to create synthetic speech from it to help people understand what's on the screen. Think of Stephen Hawking's speech synthesizer (http://www.hawking.org.uk/the-computer.html).
Problems arise when the software can't quite figure out what is meant by the text it finds.
Certain text does not result in clearly understandable announcements from screen readers. While not a requirement under WCAG 2.0, these things should be considered for the best user experience for people who use assistive technologies.
Not just an issue for screenreader users, but also people with dyslexia.
#59: Many compound words have become so commonplace that they have become acceptable in day-to-day use:
bookmark
commonplace
grandfather
newspaper
weekend
website
#62: So, accessibility is contextual.
How do we best build for accessibility then?
#64: Annotate
Fix accessibility before it hits the screens
Documenting accessibility as you go will help future iterations
Annotate wireframes with accessibility detail
Show structure, headings, labels, order
Headings
Focus order
Grouping
Structure
Colour contrast
Include disabled people in personas
Different disabilities, different needs
Older people (often first time users)
Plan to test with similar people