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Home > Web Services > You are here Disabled user testing

Disabled user testing

Disabled user testing can capture key errors on a poor website and make a good website even better

Engaging disabled users in testing your website with real tasks is a guaranteed way of ensuring everyone can use your website easily and effectively.

Following accessibility guidelines and good practices alone cannot ensure that your website is truly accessible. Involving disabled users in tests can however highlight whether this is really the case.

Recent studies, such as the DRC report into web accessibility and PAS 78, have highlighted the importance of testing websites with disabled users to ensure they are fully accessible and can meet the demands of real users.

The DRC report into web accessibility described disabled user testing as extreme user testing because disabled users will find more issues than able bodied users. If your website works for a group of users with a range of impairments and technologies you can be sure it will work for everyone else.

We offer a number of different services to meet all requirements; home user testing, moderated testing, and full lab testing. In this way we can enable sites both large and small to discover the benefits of involving disabled end users.

Our testing procedure

We begin by discussing your requirements and help to identify a range of key tasks that users would typically attempt on your website. These may include browsing via navigation menus, finding information using search or functionality such as application forms and shopping carts.

These tasks are then undertaken by our disabled testers who will either conduct them at home, in our evaluation centre or in our usability lab.

AbilityNet disabled user testing reports

Unlike most other providers of disabled user testing, our reports include vital expert analysis of the issues and recommended solutions.

After the testing is completed all issues are collated into a report which presents them alongside expert opinion and analysis - clearly outlining the steps you will need to take to address each issue.

A report which includes this level of expert review will enable you to improve both the accessibility and usability of your site for all your visitors – not just those with a disability.

"A range of interesting and useful issues arose from the disabled testing which have enabled us to make significant improvements in both accessibility and usability. It's a cost-effective and efficient way of exposing those issues disabled visitors to your site will be confronted with in reality."
Mark Bowman, Head of Electronic Media at BAE Systems

Categories of impairment

Testers’ impairments and their technologies may include any of the following:

• severe vision impaired user - screen reader (Jaws/Window-Eyes/Hal)
• medium vision impaired user - magnification software (Zoomtext/Lunar/Magic)
• mild vision impaired user - large text in browser with colour preferences
• severe motor difficulties user – switch/head operated mouse access and on-screen keyboard (The Grid/WiViK)
• medium motor difficulties/upper limb disorder (ULD) user – keyboard only user
• medium motor difficulties/ULD user – voice recognition user (Dragon Naturally Speaking)
• mild motor difficulties user - fine mouse control (movement and clickable areas - their footprint and proximity)
• medium dyslexic user - changing colours and text to speech software (TextHelp/BrowseAloud)
• mild learning/cognitive disabled user - no special access methodologies
• hearing impaired British Sign Language (BSL) user - especially if there is multimedia content on the site

We can help scope the tasks and categories of impairment to best meet your requirements.

About PAS 78

Building on the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) research of 2004, the British Standards Institution (BSI) published in early 2006 new guidance (PAS 78) to ensure that sites are accessible and usable by disabled people.

These guidelines state that those responsible for websites need to carry out practical tests (preferably with disabled people) to ensure their sites are user-friendly.

"PAS 78 reminds website designers to consult disabled people and involve them in testing their designs at every stage of the site development cycle.

Research published by the DRC in 2004 showed that testing with disabled users may uncover 45 per cent more accessibility problems than testing with software alone."
Julie Howell, author of PAS 78 and Digital Policy Development Manager at the RNIB

For more information:

• Email accessibility@AbilityNet.org.uk
• Phone 0800 269545

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