Research with blind users on mobile devices
Research with blind users on mobile devices
Posted by:
Ed Horsford, Posted on: 9 June 2016
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Categories:
Design, Testing, User research
I’m Ed, a designer at GDS. Last year we did some usability research with users with a range of visual impairments. We found out lots of interesting things, and one in particular was about the way blind users of touchscreen devices experience the web.
People often assume that because users are blind or partially sighted they won’t be able to use touch-screen devices. That’s not the case – for the most part our participants could use them easily, often preferring their phone or tablet to their desktop or laptop. However using a screen reader by touch is different than using it by keyboard – our research found that there are different usage patterns and new design challenges to think about.
Different ways of using the web
These observations come from watching blind users in the lab using VoiceOver on iPads and iPhones, but it may apply to other touchscreen devices.
VoiceOver is a screen reader that comes included on Apple devices. On Macs users usually use [...]