3. User Stories
This section contains user stories, followed by the user needs that relate to them. They are divided into the same objectives as the design guide above.
Note that for people with cognitive and learning disabilities, meeting these needs can be the difference between being able to use the site or not being able to use it at all. This may also be true for people with mental health issues or under temporary stress.
User needs for people with cognitive and learning disabilities often help other users, although they can usually manage to use the site without these user needs being met.
3.1 Objective 1: Help Users Understand What Things are and How to Use Them
3.1.1 Clear Purpose (User Story)
As a user with a memory impairment, attention impairment, or executive function impairment or as a user with a communication disability who uses symbols, I need to know the purpose of the content so that I know if I am in the right place, and what I am doing, even if I lose attention and focus for a time.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to know what the web site offers, or if I should move on.
- I need to know what features and content are on this page or if I should move on.
- I need to recognize where I am in the architecture of the web site, application, or multi-step process, even after I get distracted.
- I need to know the relationship between this page and the site/task, even after I get distracted.
- I need to know the context and purpose of the page.
- In videos and multimedia: I need to know what is in the video, I can jump to the content I need, and I can restore context if I get distracted.
3.1.2 Clear Operation (User Story)
As a user with a memory impairment, a learning disability, or a communication disability who uses symbols, or executive function impairment, I find it hard to learn new interface design patterns. I need to know which controls are available and how to use them so that the site is usable for me.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to understand my options and the tasks I can perform and I can identify the controls I can interact with to complete actions.
- I need to know how to use all the controls and the effects of each action.
- I need the controls to be easy to correctly activate. The interface is designed so that I rarely activate controls by accident.
- I need to know what are controls and what are not controls. I do not try to activate elements that are not controls. Otherwise I think the site is broken.
- I need to know where things are. Controls and content do not move unexpectedly as I am using them.
- I need to know what happens when I touch things. I know the consequence of each action, such as sending information, changing settings, changing the context or closing the application.
3.1.3 Symbols (pictographic or ideographic that represent concepts) (User Story)
As a user with complex communication needs that may include a mild language impairment, I want symbols that help me understand the content.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need symbols to help understand essential content, such as controls and section headings.
- I need symbols that I understand and are familiar to me (recognizable, personalizable or commonly used symbols).
- I need symbols placed above the text to link the meaning of the words with the images.
Related Persona: George, Gopal
As a user with a severe language impairment, who has managed to learn a symbol vocabulary, I need to have symbols on top of each phrase and very simplified language. Of course, it is best if I understand the symbols and they are the ones I have learnt (via personalization).
Related Persona: George
3.2 Objective 2: Help Users Find What They Need
3.2.1 Findable (User Story)
As a user with a memory impairment, impaired executive function, or impaired language processing skills who has trouble finding the features they need, I need to identify important information and critical functions on a page, so that I can find things in a reasonable amount of time.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I can identify important information and critical functions on a page, quickly and easily.
- I need to reach important information and the controls I need without scrolling or carrying out other actions. They are not hidden or off screen.
- I need to find it easy to identify the content that I need, and do not need. Information I need to know and important information stands out, or is the first thing I read and does not get lost in the noise of less important information.
- I need to get to the feature I need using the minimum number of easy steps.
- I need to know the starting point for each specific task, such as applying for a job.
- I need to find the design and user interface elements familiar. Menus, buttons, design components, and common elements such as help and search are easy to recognize and where I expect them to be.
3.2.2 Searchable (User Story)
As a user with a cognitive or learning disability and who learnt how to use search to find things, I need to be able use search, so that I can find things on a web site.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to be able to find features and content easily.
- I need to find what I have searched for before.
- I need to easily navigate through the menu structure and organization of the site.
- I need to easily navigate through the page structure.
Related Persona: Kwame
3.2.4 Media (User Story)
As a user with impaired executive functioning and attention impairments, I want media presented in small chunks of understandable content, so that I can understand the main points and not lose focus.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to easily navigate to what I want, take breaks and easily jump back a step if I do not follow or get distracted.
- I need small segments of multimedia that have navigable text or labels that describe the segment.
- I need easy to understand language to be used
- I need to use a clear structure to help me navigate and understand different parts of the media.
- I need to use visual aids and pictures to help me understand the media content.
- I need to be able to find the transcript, if a transcript is available.
Related Persona: Yuki
3.3 Objective 3: Use Clear and Understandable Content
3.3.1 Clear Language (Written or Audio) (User Story)
As a user with a language, processing, or memory impairment, I need the language used to be clear and easy for me to understand so that I can understand the content.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to understand the language used, including vocabulary, syntax, tense, and other aspects of language.
- I need to easily distinguish the content from the background distractions.
- I need words to include accents, characters, and diacritics that are necessary to phonetically read the words. This is often needed for speech synthesis and phonetic readers in languages like Arabic and Hebrew.
- I need to understand the meaning of the text. I do not want unexplained, implied or ambiguous information because I may misunderstand jokes and metaphors.
- I need an easy to understand, short summary for long pieces of content or an option for an easy to understand language version.
- I need images, diagrams, or video clips to help me understand ideas (more than a lot of words).
- I need explanations of implied or ambiguous information, like body gestures and facial expressions seen in images and animations.
3.3.2 Visual Presentation (User Story)
As a user with a language or communication impairment, dyslexia, or an impaired memory, I want a page layout that helps me follow and understand the content without getting overwhelmed.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need small or short chunks of content, sections, or boxes.
- I need a good use of white space, so that the chunks are clear and the page does not get overwhelming.
3.3.3 Math Concepts (User Story)
As a user who does not understand numerical concepts, I need content to be usable without understanding math concepts.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need content without math concepts.
- I need content that provides alternatives like a non-math textual explanation.
- I need words rather than numbers and numerical concepts.
3.4 Objective 4: Help Users Avoid Mistakes and Know How to Correct Them
3.4.1 Assistance and Support (User Story)
As a user who has difficulty with organization (executive function), typing, and putting letters and numbers in the right order, I want an interface that stops me from making mistakes, and helps me complete forms and perform other similar tasks successfully.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need an interface that helps me avoid mistakes.
- I need to enter as little information as possible, so the task is more manageable.
- I need the interface to only give valid options, so I can select the ones I want.
- I need an interface that helps ensure I rarely touch controls by accident.
- I need long numbers that often have spaces, like credit card numbers, divided into chunks. That way I find it easier to check them.
- I need inputs to accept different formats and not mark them as mistakes.
- I need interfaces to use metrics I know, and that are common in my location (such as feet or meters), otherwise I get confused. I do not always know what metric they are talking about or notice when the number looks wrong.
- I need to use applications (or standard application programming interfaces - APIs) that help me. For example, by remembering my information so I do not need to enter it again and helping with spelling.
- I need clear labels, step-by-step instructions, and clear error messages, so I know exactly what to do.
- I need examples that make it easy to understand what I need to do.
- I need clear and simple explanations of options or choices to help me know what they mean.
- I need help managing my time, such as letting me know how long a task will take.
- I need time to complete my work. I do not want a session to timeout while I try to find the information needed, such as my postal/zip code or social security number.
- I need to save my work as I go or be sure all my work is saved automatically. I do not want to start over again, which can create a cycle of reentering my data. This makes me tire easily and more likely to make mistakes.
- I need support to manage the task, such as letting me know what information I will need (credit card, full address, etc.) before I start.
- I need to understand the consequences of what I do online.
Related Personas: Alison, George, Gopal, Jonathan, Kwame Maria, Sam, Tal, Yuki
3.4.2 Undo (User Story)
As a user who often makes mistakes or touches the wrong thing, I want to undo what I just did quickly and easily so that I can manage to use applications.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to check my work and go back without losing the work I have just done.
- I need to go back to where I was in one simple step, when I touch the wrong control.
- I need predictable back or undo features so that I know exactly where I was previously, before I made a mistake.
3.5 Objective 5: Help Users Focus
3.5.1 Distractions (User Story)
As a user with an attention impairment and impaired memory, I need to avoid distraction. If I lose focus and forget what I am doing, I need reminders of what I was doing, so that I can complete my task.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need tasks to not have distractions.
- I need to turn distractions off easily, if there are distractions.
- I need to know where a task starts and finishes to help with switching attention so that I can focus on the task.
- I need to know the context, where I am, what I just did, or what just happened to me after I lost cognitive focus and then needed to come back to the task.
- I need to be able to go back or see information about where I am in a site so that I can reorient myself.
- I need to know where I am in a process to avoid disorientation, including what I have done and what my next step will be.
3.6 Objective 6: Ensure Processes Do Not Rely on Memory
3.6.1 Remembering from Previous Steps (User Story)
As a user with short-term and working memory difficulties, I need processes that do not rely on memory and access to information I entered during previous steps in a process.
Related Personas: Maria
3.6.2 Accessible Authentication (User Story)
As a user who has memory impairments and often forgets passwords, and has impaired executive function, I need a method of secure web site authentication that I can use.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to be able to use a site without remembering or transcribing passwords, codes, and usernames.
- I need to understand the content. I cannot decipher a lot of words or unfamiliar icons.
- I need a login process to be simple, and not multi-step.
- I need a login process that I can use that does not rely on a lot of words.
- I need a login process that does not have puzzles or calculations.
3.7 Objective 7: Provide Help and Support
3.7.1 Help (User Story)
As a user who finds some web sites hard to use, I need to get help and give feedback easily from every place where I get stuck. This ensures I am not excluded and the site is aware of my needs.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to give feedback from any point in the process.
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I need to give feedback, ask questions, and get feedback:
- in a similar timeframe to everyone else,
- using my preferred communication method (form, email, chat, phone support, etc.) and it is accessible to me, and
- I know how to get help or information, such as from context-sensitive help or tooltips.
- I need to know how to get human help and can manage the process easily.
Related Persona: Alison
3.7.2 Support (User Story)
As a user who finds some web sites hard to use and struggles with text and words, I sometimes need in-page and inline support so that I can use the content. However, with an attention impairment any support required needs to be in my control to avoid distractions.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need any help and support content to include symbols or enable me to personalize content using my own.
- I need help and main content to be clearly differentiated so I do not confuse them.
- I need contextually-relevant graphs and pictures to supplement text.
- I need text-to-speech support, with synchronized highlighting, so I can follow along as words are read aloud.
- I need rapid feedback or visual cues to show when an event is successfully triggered. For example, I need to know when an email is sent, otherwise it looks as if it has just disappeared.
- I need reminders integrated into my calendar, otherwise I will forget appointments and when I am meant to do things. Sometimes I need reminders to revisit a web site to complete the next task.
- I need to control when reminders are sent, the frequency and type of reminders so that I do not become distracted by too many reminders.
3.7.3 Directions (User Story)
As a user with cognitive and learning disabilities that affect navigation and sequencing, I need help understanding and using directions and navigation.
3.7.4 Cognitive Stress (User Story)
As a user with sensitivities that can be affected by content (e.g. content that is busy, confusing, depressing, or has loud noises), I need content that I can cope with so that I can be successful.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need simple, consistent content.
- I need to avoid and recover from mental fatigue.
- I need to sometimes avoid types of content, such as social media, distractions, noises, or triggers.
- I need to make less mistakes and errors.
- I need to know I am safe and secure when using a web site, especially if providing information or communicating with others.
3.7.5 Task Management (User Story)
As a user who struggles using web content due to executive function impairment, or struggles with numerical concepts, I want to be confident that I can manage my tasks.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need explanations for unusual controls in a form I find easy to use (such as a video or text).
- I need support and explanations for any choices. The advantages or disadvantages are clear to me and I understand the effects of the choice I might make. For example, when choosing a cheaper airline ticket, you often have to pay for a meal.
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I need to know how to start a task, and what is involved such as:
- the steps involved,
- a time estimate for completing the task and any time limits,
- any materials I may need (such as a credit card number, passport number, questions that authenticate login such as "your mother's maiden name"),
- support and instructions that I understand to help me organize the time and steps,
- any limitations are clear to me before I begin.
- I need to turn off any distractions during a task, and help is available at any point.
3.8 Objective 8: Support Adaptation and Personalization
3.8.1 Adapt (User Story)
As a user with short and medium-term memory impairment and impaired executive function, I need a familiar interface so that I do not need to figure out and remember new interfaces. This may take a few weeks of repetition and I may not manage to learn it all if I have a condition affecting learning new things, such as dementia.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need (a version of) a familiar interface, that I recognize and know what will happen.
- I need the controls to be consistently positioned on the screen where I expect them to be.
- I need content delivered in easy to understand language or an easy to understand mode (like short, understandable, video clips).
- I need to easily find and select the content format or version of the content that is easiest for me to understand.
- I need alternatives to spoken and written language, such as icons, symbols, or pictures.
- I need personalized symbols, icons, or pictures that I can recognize immediately, as learning new ones takes a long time.
- When I do not know a word, I need symbols and pictures that I know and recognize.
- I need videos and pictures that help me understand the content without so much reading of text.
- I need “easy to use” gestures on a touch screen that do not confuse me (or the possibility of alternative access).
- I need to express my ideas without so many words, such as using speech recognition or pictures (I have a program, where I select a word and it gives me a picture).
- I need to be able to add more white space between lines, sentences, phrases, and chunks.
- I need alternatives for mathematical content, that do not rely on mathematical concepts.
- I need less content without extra options and features as I cannot function at all when there is too much cognitive overload.
- I need to find the extra features when I want them.
3.8.2 Extensions and APIs (User Story)
As a user with cognitive and learning disabilities, who uses add-ons and extensions as assistive technology, I need my add-ons, application programming interface (API), and extensions to work with the content so that I can use it.
This user story also includes the following user needs:
- I need to use additional support features from widgets or extensions. For example, I have an extension that helps me correctly enter words, grammar, and use punctuation as well as reading the page to me.
- I need to use my password manager.
- I need to use my toolbar that adds symbols and reformats the page.