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Defining accessibility and usability

This presentation by Bradley Dilger from Western Illinois University delves into the crucial roles of accessibility and usability in technical communication. Attendees will explore the often-confused relationship between these concepts, discuss definitions, and recognize their imperative place within user-centered design. Dilger emphasizes the importance of understanding that both accessibility and usability greatly benefit users beyond mere legal obligations, urging the audience to thoughtfully consider how to enhance practices in education and creation.

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Defining accessibility and usability

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  1. Bradley Dilger Dept of English & Journalism Western Illinois University Macomb, IL cb-dilger@wiu.edu Defining accessibilityand usability

  2. Today’s presentation • Continue to increase role of accessibility and usability in technical communication • Discuss parallels and confusion • Encourage thinking about definitions • Build better theory and practice, especially in education

  3. Assumptions • Both accessibility and usability should be: • part of user-centered design and development • integrative: considered by all parties, throughout creative processes • Benefits of both far exceed legal obligations and cost

  4. Confusion & conflation • Often good intentions • Several sources: • unfortunate parallels • oversimplified definitions • simple conflation

  5. Confusion: Example

  6. Confusion: Example

  7. Confusion: Example

  8. Unfortunate parallels • Address one and you address the other • Solely technological • For disabled or dumb only • Do at the end • Additive • Too much trouble • Stultifying

  9. Parallels: one → other

  10. Parallels: just technology

  11. Parallels: disabled, dumb

  12. Parallels: definitions • Often simplified, even oversimplified • Lack of consensus about specifics • Often conflicting

  13. Usability = ease

  14. “The ease of which a user can interpret and respond to information.” “A set of properties that makes something easy to use.” “An evaluation and measurement of a computer program's overall ease-of-use.” Usability = ease

  15. Automatic usability

  16. Defining accessibility • Wide variation in form and content • Giorgio Brajnik’s review: • WCAG 1.0, 2.0 have none • Two in Italian law • Slatin & Rush • ISO 16071: usability • Henry: primarily usability

  17. Accessibility = usability? • Nielsen: “When you want to improve your website for users with disabilities, remember the real goal: to help them better use the site. Accessibility is a necessary, but not nearly sufficient, objective. Your main focus should be on the site's usability for disabled users, with an emphasis on how well the design helps them accomplish typical tasks.”

  18. A subset? • Is accessibility part of usability? • Henry and others

  19. A precursor? • Is accessibility a precursor to usability? Or vice-versa? • Accessibility is a precursor to usability. If a product is inaccessible it is, by definition, unusable since you cannot get access to it.... Once access to a product is made, the question of its usability can be determined. (Killam qtd in Clark)

  20. Recap of problem • Parallels, many negative, encourage conflation of accessibility and usability • Unstable and often too simple definitions—reinforced by parallels

  21. Solution • Be more careful about parallels • Clarify relationship • Clarify definitions

  22. Fixing parallels • Continue to attack negative parallels • Emphasize positive • Avoid temptation to combine accessibility and usability for convenience • institutions • process • education

  23. Fixing relationship • Neither equivalent, subset, precursor, technical, or limited work exclusively • All true at times • More discussion in this area needed

  24. Fixing definitions • Attack poor definitions • Insist on role of user-centered design and development • Use multi-part definitions

  25. Multi-part: usability • learnability, or being “easy to learn” • efficiency of use • memorability, or “an interface that is easy to remember” • few and noncatastrophic errors • subjective satisfaction, or pleasure in use • Nielsen 1993; Quesenbery similar

  26. Multipart: example

  27. Multipart: accessibility • WCAG 2.0 (Henry et al.): • perceivable, operable, and understandable • robust • navigable • POUR or PONUR

  28. Multipart: accessibility • Principles of universal design: • Equitable Use • Flexibility in Use • Simple and Intuitive Use • Perceptible Information • Tolerance for Error • Low Physical Effort • Size and Space for Approach and Use

  29. Why multipart? • WCAG 2.0 • Facilitates comparison of accessibility and usability • Allows weighting parts of definition pending context • Ideal for variety of situations encountered by technical communicators • Supports integrative approach

  30. Multipart in action

  31. Which multipart? • PO(N)UR • Principles of universal design • Other concepts • equivalence • flexibility (“transformability”) • affordance

  32. More thought...

  33. The future • WCAG 2.0 • More computing, so more need for accessibility and usability • Emergent technologies still have questionable accessibility: AJAX • Aging population means more need for accessibility

  34. Link to presentation: http://faculty.wiu.edu/CB-Dilger/ Contact: cb-dilger@wiu.edu Thank you

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