usability Archives - Suman’s Accessibility blog

Overview

I am person with visually impaired (totally blind) and I would like to share my experience on the accessibility of apps and websites that I use as part of my day-to-day activities. As part of this, I would like to discuss top 10 things that are really affecting and bothering me very much because of inaccessibility of those apps and websites. The top 10 things that I am going to discuss today are not only the issues for me but also these are the issues for whole community. Before writing this article, I spoke to many visually impaired friends and most of them are having the same views as I have.

As you know, most of the things(such as buying the product, ordering the food, booking flight tickets, booking cab, net banking, booking doctor appointment, paying utility bills, reading news, getting updated with the knowledge, watching movies, listening to music, applying for the insurance claims, updating insurance cards, tracking the status of parcel, booking the bus/train, mobile recharges, booking gas, paying life insurance/health insurance/term insurance premiums, catching-up with friends and family in the online meeting platforms, sharing the feelings in the social networking sites like Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, whats app, online education, applying for the job, applying for housing loan, checking our PF amount, filing the income tax, booking hotels/resorts, apply for the passport, and much more..) can be done in the online itself. Making the things in the online is very convenient and easy for the users as the works get done without stepping out from our house. In addition, pandemic made people to use the online mode with force as people believe that online mode is very safe. Since most of the things are happening in the online, imagine what if these websites/applications are not accessible for the people with disabilities like me? if these websites/applications are not accessible for the people with disabilities like me then it is going to create huge barrier for us. As a result, people with disabilities would not be independent enough in accessing the same. Therefore, it is very critical to make the applications/website accessible for the people with disabilities. let us look at top 10 things that are really affecting and bothering me while accessing this information digitally.

Top 10 inaccessible things that make my life frustrating

I need to pay utility bills (such as electricity bills, mobile recharges, d2h, and so on.) on the monthly basis and many people use Paytm app to do the same. Unfortunately, Paytm is not great in terms of its accessibility. The biggest challenge with the Paytm app is that the page keeps getting refreshed/updated while accessing the elements with the screen reader and as a result, the focus gets lost. This makes the experience horrible for the assistive technology users in accessing and paying the utility bills. Although there is an alternative accessible app called google pay, my question is why don’t paytm team make their app and website accessible for me and my community? Even though community raise many concerns about its accessibility, they did not really care. I stopped using paytm app all together. Another aspect is that am forced to use google pay here despite of good offers/deals in the paytm. It is not fare that I cannot take the advantage of those deals and offers that paytm is providing. It is really discrimination

I need to do certain financial transactions on the regular basis with the help of net banking. However, some of the bank websites are having image captcha to login to the sites. This image captchas makes us dependent to do the financial transactions and it’s very frustrating. To overcome this challenge, banking websites should provide alternatives (such as OTP logins, audio captchas, and so on.) to image captchas to provide equal experience for all the users

I was recently trying to book the slot for the covid-19 vaccination in the cowin website but, I was unable to book slot for the vaccination due to its inaccessibility. Imagine if health related things are not accessible for people with disabilities, then we feel very insecure in the society. Government should take right measures to make such health-related thing accessible for all the users and it’s a fundamental right for the citizens. Anyways, I took vaccination from my company and my company arranged vaccination for me and my family and the process went very smooth, thanks to my employer!

When my family is not around, and I want to order the food in the online then I need to look for the food apps. one of the popular food apps is Zomato. Unfortunately, Zomato is not great in terms of its accessibility. The main challenge with Zomato is that screen reader users would not be able to understand that there are offers because all those offers are in the images format. Similarly, there are lot of unlabelled buttons (increment/decrement quantity) in the app and as a result, screen reader users would not be able to understand the purpose of those buttons. Although I can order the food in the Zomato, it is kind of bumpy!

I sometimes need to buy household things or electronic items for my family and myself. To buy those things, I open online shopping app called flip cart app and try to access the app with my screen reader. Unfortunately, category names (such as men, women, electronic, kids, kitchen and so on.) are not read for me as those categories are represented in the image format. This kind of experience makes me very annoying and makes us dependent to buy the things. Although there is an alternative accessible website which is amazon, my question is why don’t flipcart team make their app and website accessible? I am forced to use amazon here despite of good offers/deals in the flipcart. It is not fare that I cannot take the advantage of those deals and offers that flipcart is providing. It is really discrimination

When I want to go to hotel/resort for chill out then I open app called goibibo to book the hotels. However, I cannot even find search feature to look for the hotels in this app with my screen reader and it is highly inaccessible. I really get frustrated with these inaccessible applications because I cannot book hotel rooms by myself

When I want to travel around the country then I must book the tickets in the online applications. However, most of those online apps (such as goibibo, make my trip) are not accessible because I cannot even select from and to city and calendar controls with my screen readers.

When I want to send some food or some gift from my home to my friend’s home then I need to use app called donzo. To send the things from my home to my friend’s home, we need to search for my friend’s address in the donzo app. However, this core search functionality itself is not accessible with my screen reader and as a result, I am dependent to perform this task. When there is dependency then my frustration becomes doubled

When I want to have entertainment then I want to open Aha app. Aha is one of the entertainment apps and many new movies get released in this app. However, I cannot access Aha app at all with my screen reader and it is highly inaccessible. The basic things such as playing videos and browsing the movie names itself are not accessible with my screen reader and it is really a big problem. Although there is an alternative accessible app called prime video, my question is that why don’t Aha team make their app accessible? Things are different from Aha app to amazon prime video and vice-versa. The simple example could be the movie that I want to watch in the Aha app is not available in the amazon prime video. Even though I am forced to use amazon prime video here, I cannot watch my favourite movie, is not it frustrating?

When I want to understand what is going on in the society then I want to read the E-news. While reading the news in the online with my screen reader, lots of adds(advertisements) interrupt my reading. As a result, I give-up reading the news completely.

The terms inclusive design, accessibility, and usability are being used interchangeably by most of us. Although the purpose of those 3 terms are kind of similar (accommodating the web to as many as users), however, they are slightly different from each other in terms of it’s meaning. This blog post attempts to give you the basic understanding of these 3 terms. Let us look into them one by one

Inclusive design

Inclusive design is nothing but no one should be excluded in using product and it talks about people first as well as design for all. Let me explain this with simple examples. If I am giving the lecture in the Spanish language to the group of people and some of the group members do not know the Spanish language, then my lecture is not an inclusive. The reason for not being inclusive is that the group members who do not know Spanish language are completely excluded from the other group members due to the language barrier, which is not really great thing. To make the environment inclusive, we need to figure out what is the common language among all of them (perhaps English) and start giving the lecture as accordingly. Similarly, another example could be manufacturing the chairs. During the initial stages of chair development itself, manufactures should think through different personas who uses the chair. The different personas in this context could be, is my chair usable for tall person, is my chair usable for short person, and so on. if the manufacturer does not thing through different type of end users who use chair during the initial stages itself then it is high chance that chair is not going to be usable to certain group, which is not inclusive. These are the simple examples that I provided to make you understand what is inclusive. We can apply the same concept anywhere starting from designing the physical products to the designing the web and so on.

To put the things simpler, Inclusive design targets/aims to accommodate the web to the full range of human diversity. When we say diverse users then the design of the product should be in such a way that it can be used by different people such as people with different culture, people with different geographical location, people with different computer literacy and skills, people with low internet connectivity, people who speaks different languages, people with different education background, people with the different age group, people with disabilities, and so on.. thus, inclusive design does not talk accessibility of people with disabilities alone and it talks much more than just accessibility of people with disabilities. Accessibility of people with disabilities is just one single part of the inclusive design. On other hand, most of the designers forget to consider people with disabilities group all together during designing phase. Forgetting to consider people with disabilities group during design phase may not be an intentional thing but many designers may not aware of that there is such a group exist. Sometimes, forgetting to consider the people with disabilities group during design phase may be an intentional thing because designers/company thing that people with disabilities are minority only. When they think so then implication is so huge as you are leaving 15 to 20% of the world population. Yes, as per the recent census, 15 to 20% of the world population has one or other form of disability. Whatever the reason it could be, you are leaving 15 to 20% of world population in accessing your product if you do not consider the people with disabilities group. Therefore, as part of the design process, designers should consider the different personas including people with disabilities in order to make the design as inclusive as possible. On top of that, when accessibility is being considered at the design phase itself then it is going to reduce your time, money, and effort. In fact, we preach accessibility should be considered at the requirement phase itself and that would result much more inclusive experience.

There is one more term called universal design, and this is almost identical to the inclusive design. It is ok to use either of the terms based on the contexts.

Accessibility

Accessibility talks about addressing the challenges of people with disabilities in general whereas web accessibility talks about addressing the challenges of people with disabilities to the web specific. Inclusive design is the process/method of the making the products/services to the diverse users whereas web accessibility is the result of the inclusive design process. web accessibility means that people with disabilities can equally perceive, navigate, operate, and understand the websites and tools. Web accessibility also talks about more of principles, standards, guidelines, checkpoints, techniques, and so on. and it is kind of the measurement how accessible the product/service/web is for people with disabilities. On other hand, inclusive design talks about more of abilities of the different type of the users, frustration of the different type of the users, challenges of the different types of the users, and so on.

Apart from that, Web enhances it’s usability when the site is accessible. Let me explain this with examples. When the accessibility color contrast guideline is followed then it is not only helping low vision users but also it helps even sighted users who use the device in the sunny. Another example providing the captions for the videos/multimedia. As per the accessibility requirement, captions are needed for all the videos/multimedia in order to help people with hearing impaired. Providing the captions for the videos/multimedia just not only helps the people who are hearing impaired but also helps the hearing people when the videos are opened in the noisy environment. Thus, some of the accessibility requirements enhances the usability for all.

In addition, Web enhances the inclusion aspect as well when the site is accessible. Let us look into that with the examples. Providing the alt text for the informative images is the accessibility requirement in order to help screen reader users. Text alternative for the informative images not only helps the screen reader users but also helps the people who are having connectivity issues. Another example could be making the web content as understandable as possible with all relationships. Simple design and easy language not only help the people with disabilities but also the people with low literacy or not fluent in the language/people who are new users or infrequent users. Thus, some of the accessibility requirements improves the inclusion aspect as well.

Usability

Usability is about designing products to be effective, efficient, and satisfying and is the qualities that make a web experience intuitive and easy to use. To put it in the simple words, usability is nothing but how easy it is for the users to complete certain task on the web. For example, booking flight ticket in the airlines involves with multiple steps (such as searching for the flights, choosing the right flights, booking the seat, payment, and so on.) and how easy user can navigate, understand, operate, and complete the desired task is all about the usability.

The sad part of the story is that most of the times people with disabilities are not considered in the usability process and this is forgotten. It is important that real people with disabilities along with other users are involved in the usability process to make the web usable to all. In addition, the real people with disabilities should be involved from the design phase to all the stages of the product development and that leads to usable accessibility. Usable accessibility is nothing, but web is usable and accessible for all the users including people with disabilities.

Conclusion

Inclusive design is the process/method to accommodate the web for diverse users including people with disabilities. Web accessibility talks about how well the people with disabilities can access the web and it is usually the result of the inclusive design process. Usability talks how easy it is for all the users including people with disabilities to accomplish certain task on the web. All 3 terms (inclusive design, accessibility, and usability) sound similar but they are slightly different from each other and all together makes the web better place for everybody.

References

Accessibility, Usability, and Inclusion | Web Accessibility initiative (WAI)