Disabilities and User Experience.
An exploratory case study of survey and website accessibility.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17411/jacces.v14i2.513Abstract
There is a lack of research regarding the challenges experienced by people with disabilities when taking surveys or participating in usability testing. Websites, digital health applications, and electronic books are products users are recruited to evaluate through surveys and usability tests. However, these products and the instruments used to evaluate them aren’t necessarily developed with the intended users being people with disabilities. Although some products use accessibility and usability practices when designing products, they vary in quality and quantity. Before a product—the website or electronic book—can move to production, it needs to be tested by a sample of people who are potential users but there is a lack of research on accessible instrument design that would make the user testing population and practices more inclusive. The purpose of this case study is to address this lack of research; and understand the experiences, challenges, and preferences of diverse users when participating in research studies through three forms of data collection: an interview, observation, and document analysis. The interview explores the experiences and observations encountered by a disability services professional at a public research institution. This data is triangulated with content analysis from a relevant document that describes 12 disability personas and an observation about accessible web design for people with cognitive disabilities. Two main themes emerged in the findings: Challenges and frustrations for people with disabilities and advice or guidance for information design. The triangulated analysis brings forth accessible design considerations for future research, practical advice for survey and usability testing with the disability community, and new questions for future research on inclusive instrument design.
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