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Requirements and Changelog for "Involving Users in Web Accessibility Design and Evaluation"
Alternative titles for consideration:
@@ "Involving Users in Web Accessibility Development"
@@ "Involving Users in Web Development"
Draft: http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/Drafts/involving/
supercedes "Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation" published in 2005.
This Changelog supercedes "Requirements and Changelog for 'Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation'", the predecessor to this document.
Note: Open items are shown with @@ and green highlighting.
Page Contents
About "Involving Users"
This document will provide an overview of including people with disabilities and older people throughout Web design and development processes. It builds on the existing document “Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation”, available at http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/users.html
Purpose, Goals, Objectives
- Rationale:
- Many Web developers do not involve users in the design process. Even those who do involve users, rarely include people with disabilities or older users.
- There are many benefits of including users, especially older users and people with disabilities, in the development process from the beginning of the project.
- Bringing users into the process from the early stages helps designers and developers better understand accessibility issues and better implement effective accessibility solutions. It also encourages early incorporation of accessibility solutions, rather than trying to make adjustments at the end of the development process that are often more difficult to implement
- Objective:
-
- Provide basic information to help designers and developers get started with including people with disabilities and older users at all stages of Web design and development
- Encourage developers to involve users early and often
- Encourage developers to do whatever they can - reminding them that informal involvement of users is more useful than no involvement
- Notes:
-
- Broaden the scope of the existing document from evaluation only to include all stages of the development process
- Ensure that older users are specifically included in the document
Audience
- Primary audience:
-
- Web developers (designers, content authors, etc.) who want to create accessible Web sites
- Usability professionals who want to improve the accessibility of the Web sites they work on
- Secondary audience:
-
- Anyone interested in better understanding the basics of involving users with disabilities in Web development - including educators, researchers, decision makers, accessibility professionals, professional evaluators
Approach
- Scope:
-
- A broad introduction for including users throughout the process; not a comprehensive resource covering all aspects of usability
- Provide a broad overview of including users with disabilities and older users throughout the design and development process
- Will not cover details on every aspect, for example, will not be a comprehensive resource for usability testing with participants with disabilities
- A broad introduction for including users throughout the process; not a comprehensive resource covering all aspects of usability
- Format:
- WAI resource; single Web page
- Structure (draft):
-
- Introduction
- Involving users effectively
- Including diverse users
- Analyzing accessibility problems
- Drawing conclusions
- Related resources
- Glossary (limited)
- Tasks:
-
- Review the existing document for opportunities to more explicitly include older users, integrating information learned from the WAI-AGE Literature Review, for example, possibly expanding the glossary (Terminology and Notes) section
- Expand the existing document to cover including users early and throughout the design and development process (rather than just in evaluation), including older users
- Seek community review
Notes
- Size:
- [@@ less than 3/4/5 printed pages
- @@ 1 hour of reading time]
- Incorporate into Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility on completion
- Move resource from "Evaluating" to "Implementing" during redevelopment and expansion to ensure users are incorporated earlier in the design and development process
- see Archive below for previous wish-list and considerations (may need expanding with respect to older users)
References
WAI-AGE task force and EOWG Discussions:
Related documents:
- Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation - http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/users.html
- Implementation Plan for Web Accessibility - http://www.w3.org/WAI/impl/Overview.html
- WAI-AGE project - http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/
- WAI-AGE deliverables - http://www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/deliverables.html#involve
Changelog
Note: See "Previous Changelog" for 2005 meeting minutes and e-mail comments.
25 June 2009
- Requirements document (this document) updated to become more structured
- Initial opportunities flagged in DRAFT - Involving Users in Web Development for TF discussion
11 May 2009
- Requirements document (this document) updated to reflect TF discussion at 6 May 2009 teleconf
28 January 2009
- Requirements document (this document) updated to reflect EO & TF discussion at October 2008 meeting
Archive (for consideration from 2005 development)
Consider for revision or related documents or other (from 2005)
- Reduce spacing before top of list with previous paragraph
- Add image of green magnifying glass & look for other graphic opportunities
- consider change:
location: "Introduction" section, second paragraph
current wording: example of screen reader user
suggested revision: example of screen magnification
rationale: screen readers are mentioned elsewhere in the document (for example in "Involving Users Effectively") and often not an obvious AT to Web developers. - Link to when done:
- in For More Info section: [selecting consultants] with the blurb organizations that can help
- in For More Info section: How People with Disabilities Use the Web describes how different disabilities affect Web use and accessibility requirements for people with different kinds of disabilities, and includes scenarios of people with disabilities using the Web.
- in Terminology section: Basic Glossary (formerly known as (fka) Lexicon)
- document addressing issues of usability & accessibility & "basic accessibility" and "usable accessibility"
- consider if want to tweak to meet additional "requirements"
- side goal: creating evangelists
- audience: includes tool developers
- scope: including throughout design & development, not just eval [already cover that some...]
Important messages from 2005:
- one user not representative, don't do everything one user says
- distinguish between usability vs. accessibility issues
- distinguish between issues of user agent, Web site, assistive technology, user knowledge, ...
- more than just people who are blind
- Since this is part of the Evaluation Suite, focus on user involvement in accessibility testing; however, since ideally users are incorporated throughout the process, mention getting them involved from the start and throughout
- Carefully clarify that usability testing is not a requirement to ensure comply with WCAG
- level of user expertise (depends on target audience) - too advanced might know uncommon work-arounds, not advanced enough may not know thinks like links lists, headings nav, etc.) - people often mis-state their own level
- issues with non-PWDs using AT - false negatives, 'cause don't know how to use screen reader, think it's hard 'cause they don't know how to use them...
- stakeholders - live observation!!! (or at least highlight tapes), rather than dry report...
- issue: terminology. does "usability testing" conjure up formal testing through complete tasks too much? if so, should we use something else, such as "user involvement in accessibility testing" or "testing accessibility features with users" or ?? that is not too awkward?