Usability Studies and Participants with Disabilities: What you Need to Know
Published by Peter McNally, Rachel Graham, and Jocelyn Bellas
Over the last few years, we ran several usability studies with participants with various disabilities (visual, cognitive, and motor). We thought it would help others if we shared some of the main lessons learned when testing with individuals with disabilities.
Figure 1: Windows 10 high contrast mode of Google.com
Background
Several of our clients from a state government agency to a fortune 100 company came to us at the User Experience Center (UXC) for help with their websites. They wanted to make sure users with disabilities could access their site and accomplish their goals. Typically, companies aim for compliance with accessibility guidelines such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0). While this is critical, it is also important to have users with disabilities try to accomplish real tasks on the site in usability testing. There may be gaps in the overall user experience, even if a site follows the accessibility guidelines and is technically accessible, users may not be able to accomplish their goals on the site.
Lessons Learned
In most ways, usability testing with this population is no different than testing with anyone else. [...]