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What is Accessibility Testing?

A way of testing your website with real users, each with differing levels of ability. This may include people with visual, cognitive or physical impairments. You get to see what works and what doesn't and what your customers think of it.

Why you need it

Even if a site is accessible it doesn't necessarily follow that it is usable to an audience such as this, and it can be difficult to see what people with a form of disability think about your site. Accessibility testing is the most effective way of finding this out.

What we do

We have a panel of users with differing levels of ability and with different impairments, and we ask them to work with your product as if they were using it in the real world. This takes place in their own environment and using their own specialist equipment (such as screen readers) so that they are comfortable and working in the way they normally would. We record their interactivity so that we can analyse their behaviour within the interface, providing much more accurate results than market research - what they tell you is not always what they do. We then analyse the results and produce an in-depth report of findings, which we present back to you.

We can test in many different ways, but four primary forms of usability test are:

• Issue testing. This is the most common form of testing, where we are looking for the accessibility / usability flaws in the design.
• Goal-based testing. The objectives of your organisation and of the users are identified and then measured during testing to see how well they are achieved.
• Money on the table testing. For e-commerce sites 'perfect' environments are set up - people who want products that are in stock, and have the money to buy them. We know how much they intend to spend, and measure how much they actually do. As all other factors are removed, any shortfall is down to usability issues. Factored up this can tell you how much your shop is losing every day due to poor usability.
• Value testing. Current product/site users are tested first to see where they find the real benefits and values. Then new users are tested, to see how well those benefits and values are communicated within the site. If new visitors don't see the benefits, they won't stay.

In detail

Firstly we meet with your team to define what type of accessibility testing you require and how the testing should take place. We'll also define where you want to test and to what timeframe.

We then recruit an audience for the test from our panel and develop a test script to meet your objectives. We will manage the testing process completely, and apart from assisting us with information and direction your team will not need to be heavily involved. Unlike standard usability testing it is not possible to view live accessibility tests.

Once testing is complete we collect and compile the results, and then analyse them to produce the findings. A full report is created, and we will present this back to your team during a half-day results analysis meeting.

Deliverables

• Two full colour copies of the test report, including:
  • Executive summary of findings
  • Overview of methodology used and steps undertaken
  • Key findings from the tests
  • Issues uncovered in the test, by priority and location
  • Recommendations for correcting each issue

If you'd like to talk to us about accessibility tests then please contact us.