usability > crumbs

There are some aspects in the world of accessibility which are, at the same time, a bit inaccessible. In a first point of view, things can be percieved as accessible, but when thinking a little more, the whole thing doesn’t appear to be as accessible as it seems.

JAWS: an accessible software, an inaccessible price.

One example is the famous screen reader JAWS. This application is, with no doubt, a big help in accessibility terms, but the problem raises when talking about the software price. The fact that makes this accessible service inaccessible is the high price of the software. The Standard JAWS has a price of $895 (Reference: JAWS official website), an inaccessible price for a lot of people requiring this product.

Accessible code, inaccessible structure

A website can have the AAA certification. However, the problems can begin when a blind user uses a text reader to read the content of the web page. The fact of obtaining the highest level of accessibility from a validator doesn’t confirm this website is easy to read for a blind user. The internal structure of the code should be the optimal for a screen reader. This means, for example, not having a <div> which contains a long left menu before the <div> which contains the content. The reason not to do that is that the screen reader would read the left menu before (taking a lot of time) and the content afterwards which is, for the user, the most interesting thing.

Accessible map, but does it make sense?

When on the last Easter holidays I travelled to Roma I was amazed to see a map in S.Maria Maggiore square in Braile language. I first thought it was a nice initiative, but, is it useful for a blind person to have this information in this circumstances? I dont’t think so,…

Profile

Mariano Calle is an Usability Senior Consultant (responsible of IA and Accessibility services in the UPS Department of everis Madrid)

He studied Business Administration and Management which helped him have a wide vision of business. It’s four years since Mariano has been working on usability, accessibility and user-centered design, topics that, for him, are useful and necessary. Before dealing with usability Mariano was a web developer and graphic designer.

Previous projects

He worked for Telefonica, Movistar, Vodafone and Amena, carrying out projects of Architecture, user tests, developing models for functional test applications and even defining processes for mobile terminals.

He has also been at Terra, redesigning internal portals. In Correos, conducting assessments of accessibility and in public administration (with several projects focusing on user design and content managers).

Mariano spent one year in Mapfre, working in one of the largest computer projects that there are currently in Spain, updating the internal operational management of insurances.

In addition, he has worked for Santillana Network, Carrefour, TNT or the Thyssen Museum in training projects and e-learning, corporate presentations, multimedia content, etc..

Interview

Mariano has answered some questions about usability:

1.What do you like the most about usability?
Users will always surprise us.

2.What do you like the less?

Usability is a solution for bad design. Good design includes usability and doesn´t need two designers with different skills, one for graphic concepts and other one for interaction.

3.Do you think usability is taken in mind enough?

Everyday, usability consultants, interaction designers an HCI professionals have more career opportunities. It means usability is taken in mind by companies. But it is not easy yet to find good experts in web or mobile tools.

4.Tell us a bad user experience you have had

I don´t like Nokia phones.

5.Tell us a good user expreience you have had

My first time with an iPod. MP3 was very boring until Apple decided to reinvent the concept about listening music.
Nowadays, I like to discover new artists in songza.com.

Jordi Andrés Solsona was born in Lleida in 1983 and he is a multimedia engineer and a usability consultant since 2005.

When he was 21 he got his undergraduate degree in multimedia at the UPC university, Terrassa. Looking forward something more technical, he became a multimedia enginner at La Salle Ramon Llull, Barcelona.

In 2005 he became a fellow researcher and research manager at de UserLab’s Human Interaction Group, la Salle, focused on Multimodal Interfaces and development of new methodologies for Human Computer Interaction paradigms.

Since 2007 to nowadays, Jordi Andrés is an usability consultant at the User Perception Services. Specialized in both qualitative and quantitative user testing of software and website, and he also works on some information architecture and accessibility projects.

Jordi has answered some questions about usability:

1.What do you like the most about usability?

I like thinking that my job makes people live easier.
I also love seeing things before they get to their main target. I like to see them evolving, improving.

2.What do you like the less?

Usability is often underestimated, specially in this country. It’s frustrating when you work hard on something and when you see the final product you realize that many of the problems spotted are still not fixed. To sum up, people is not concerned enough.

3.Do you think usability is taken in mind enough?

Feel like i already answered this one:)

4.Tell us a bad user experience you have had

The last one was when I bought a train ticket via internet, i was going home that day and coming back to barcelona, where i work, the following day. I had no problems buying the tickets, but I had to print them in a machine located at the train station. I got there, typed my code and, surprise! that machine displayed that i bought both tickets for the same day.
I printed to tickets, just to try, and everything was correct. It happened that the machines only displayed the last travel date.

5.Tell us a good user expreience you have had

Everytime i use a google product

Going back to the world of accessibility, I have taken the liberty of evaluating some public websites in the country with an automatic accessibility tool (eXaminator) .
We must have in mind that the diagnosis of an automatic accessibility tool is not definitive, and that any evaluation of this type must be followed by a manual.
One of the features provided eXaminator is that, by using an algorithm, it shows a final mark of accessibility which allows comparison between various websites and make small benchmarking studies.

That is what I have done with some public websites in Spain. The study conducted an accessibility comparison of the homepages of this sites in four levels:

• Autonomous Communities which obtanied an average mark of 7.14 in accessibility
• Capitals of the autonomous communities which obtanied an average mark of 7.64 in accessibility
• Cities with a medium population which obtanied an average mark of 6,24 in accessibility
• Cities with a small population which obtanied an average mark of 4,53 in accessibility

The summary of the results is:

• All the websites of City Halls were assessed a note accessibility between a 5.60 (Santa Cruz de Tenerife) and 9.20 (Zaragoza)
• The governments of the autonomous communities had, on average, a result below than the capitals of the autonomous communities. The Valencian Government and the Government of La Rioja were below the 5 and the Government of the Balearic Islands and the Generalitat de Catalunya had better note: 9.10 and 8.70 respectively.
• As expected, the smallest cities have the worst notes in terms of accessibility (10 of the 14 municipalities were assessed less than 5)
• The website of the City of Granada is the one with the worst note between all the evaluated, with a 2.7. The best note is fot website of the City of Zaragoza.

The General Spain Elections that took place on March 9, 2008 will be remembered for blind people as the first elections that they could vote with the same conditions than non-disabled people.

For the first time in Spain’s history, blind people can now vote in privacy. They just need, as a special resource, ballots in Braille.

From my point of view this is, undoubtedly, a breakthrough in terms of accessibility, and maybe a starting point for reflection.

Aspects relating to accessibility are, the most of times, less considered than other issues that are part of a project. This makes reduce the quick advance towards accessibility and the discrimination to a big part of our society are increasing.

The same is true in the world of Internet. All the webs of public administration entities in Europe should be accessible since 2005 (eEurope plan). In Spain, only a few fill up these conditions.

Should we move faster towards accesibility? I think so…