Insights into Cognitive Web Accessibility

Insights into Cognitive Web Accessibility

Jared Smithhttp://webaim.org

Cognitive and learning disabilities are complex

• Memory• Problem-solving• Attention• Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension• Math comprehension• Visual comprehension

Principles

Cognitive disability is not a binary state

Principles and techniques that ensure content is as widely available as possible to people with

cognitive and learning disabilities

Cognitive Web Accessibility

Previous research is sparse and disparate

It’s a very diverse population

Recommendations for one disability may disadvantage another

Cognitive and learning disabilities have been largely unaddressed in guidelines

Very Difficult! Why?

•Create an automated web accessibility evaluation tool, similar to WAVE, for cognitive accessibility.

• Focus on K-12 students

•Provide insight into cognitive and learning disability and web accessibility

WebAIM’s Project

•Cognitive accessibility principles that are...

•broadly applicable

•of interest and use to web developers

•machine testable

Our Goal

• Literature review•Broadly applicable

•Developer survey•Of interest to web developers

•Analysis•Machine testable

•User testing•Verify applicability and relevance

Our Process

• Font size•Headings• Images• Line length• Lists•Multimedia•Reading level• Search• Serif vs. sans-serif text

Elements Analyzed

•Matched Pairs•Tried to isolate the element being

analyzed•Measured efficiency, effectiveness, and

satisfaction/ease•8 grade 6-12 students with cognitive or

learning disabilities

User Testing

Small font sizevs

slightly above average font size

Larger text was more efficient, effective, and satisfying in nearly all cases

Images paired with text content vs.

text content alone

Images paired with text content vs. text content alone

7 out of 8 were more efficient and more satisfied with images

Line Length

Short (~25 characters)vs.

average (~75 characters)vs.

long (~120 characters)

All subjects took longer on the long line length pages. Little difference between short and

average.

Line Length

Students perceived the long line length page as being shorter than the others and reported it as

being easiest...

...but it actually took them much longer to read it.

Multimedia

Seven of the eight students were more efficient and also expressed more user satisfaction from

the page with the video instructions than the one with written instructions.

•Headings

• Students were slightly more efficient without headings. Though the short subject matter likely affected this.

• Students sometimes did not read headings

• Lists

• Student preferred the page with lists, but were no more efficient with them.

Less conclusive

• Reading level• No marked difference (though a very short

sample)• Search

• Spelling proved difficult.• They took time to choose “the one” correct

search result (probably a factor of the testing)• Serif vs. Sans-serif

• No marked difference• Many other studies show no difference in WEB

readability or comprehension, but significant differences in satisfaction.

Less conclusive

Initial Findings and Observations

Perceived difficulty may have a bigger impact than actual difficulty

Perceived difficultyPage with larger text appeared shorter

(though it wasn’t) and was thus perceived as easier.

Was the page more efficient because of large text or because it was perceived as

easier???

Perceived difficulty

Make your page LOOK easy

Initial Findings and Observations

Confirmation for confidence

Confirmation for confidence

Students spent a lot of time finding THE ONE correct answer.

Search results were overwhelming.

Confirmation for confidence

It wasn't a matter of finding the correct answer, it was a matter of choosing the correct answer.

Make your pages simple and intuitive. Provide error recovery

mechanisms.

Initial Findings and Observations

Distractions

Distractions

Keep visual aids clean, simple, and complementary

to the content

Initial Findings and Observations

Self-paced

Self-paced

Multimedia introduces a specific timing element. Can users keep up?

A transcript, a prominent pause feature, and an ability to quickly rewind or replay the video allow users to use multimedia

at their own pace.

Initial Findings and Observations

Consistency and organization

Consistency and organization

While organizational elements (headings, lists, etc.) can help

accessibility, they should be clearly differentiable from other elements.

Consistency and organization

Consistency and organization

The “Science of Hockey” section was nearly invisible to some students. Some never found it

after minutes of reading the page.

It was a parallel item to the other sports, but was not presented consistently.

Much more work needs to be done in this area

Questions and Discussion

?

Thank You!

Jared Smithhttp://webaim.org

twitter: @jared_w_smith