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today is the last day of the INMD workshop – on the program for today is more usertesting and an afternoon of talk from selected experts. I will try to keep notes as we go along today as I am not sure whether I will have time to write this up afterwards.
MORNING SESSION – user testing
I had fun helping the Lisa, Alex and George with their ‘iBrow’ application. Their idea of a image sharing / uploading application is inspiring and it was nice to see our users have fun with images and with sharing their interests.
We went onto to testing a site in working progress:
newham – easy read
It was interesting to hear the different opinions – very surprising at times. Though we expected people to find the icon driven navigation easier – our testers seemed to prefer to read the text. A few points we found:
- rollovers should be as larger as their boxes (if visually prominent)
- text colours with high contrast are preferred for ease of reading
- symbols were interpreted quite unpredictably at times – careful consideration needs to be taken in order to avoid confusion
making guidelines accessible…?!
our task was to brainstorm notes on how the guidelines might be written to be inclusive of our ID group. This proved to be as hard as expected – and thought we managed to put down a few good points I feel we merely pinned down good practices for usability and accessibility. Here are our notes in detail:
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
AFTERNOON SESSION – expert panel
Ann McMeekin – PixelDiva
- testing tools might be suitable for specific tasks but not for the ID usergroups
- ID users will require specific testing
- keep trying to push toward the right aim, making site as accessible as possible
- pick your battles – and show examples (eg YouTube videos) of disabled users to make your point
- accessibility is a journey not a destination
Nick Weldin - Paddington Arts
- internet is becoming more complex – so are the user groups
- bare in mind the support workers who might assist people with learning difficulties
- keyboard control is vital
Simon Detheridge – widgit
- symbols can hugely enhance the accessibility of websites
- speech facilities will also aid usablility
- symbolworld = online reference
- additional advantages are easy understanding for people with poor language skills, literacy problems
- isaac site as example of symbol usage
- for symbolised alternatives: access from home page, limit navigation to less than 8 items, symbolise 1 sentence in 1 line (due to no symbols for punctuation), do not overload the page with a vast number of symbols
Antonia Hyde – United Response
- five tips on ‘big is beautiful’
- icons, graphics and pictures
keep supportive graphics at a large size - interaction
be clear in indicating interactive elements - controls
put user in control over text size for example - control access – be clear on the main functions
- help – make help files available and clearly visible within the page
Jonathan Hassell – BBC
(participating writer on PAS78)
- inclusion
try multimedia, such as video – make use of web2.0 functionalities - personlisation
try personlising interfaces – complexity vs simplicity
(working example: BBC’s homepage feature is customisable) - beyond inclusion
try creating something special where needed (be careful not to ghettoise…)
in specific instances it will be the better solution to create specific features/pages for a select audience
Andy Minion – RIX centre
- including multimedia is clearly a preferred interest of the ID group
- positive influence of symbol usage making people re-think content structure
Today was a nice end to a great workshop ;-)
Before I finish this post however I have to say my bit about one part of our expert panel which really bothered me – the symbols and widgits issue… This had shocked me at the very beginning of the workshop when we heard about the licensing of these symbols and the sheer cost imposed upon anyone wishing to implement them.
Simon Detheridge from widgit, the company selling the software and licenses, presented what I would describe more of sales pitch than a few words on the issue of ID users needs. I was skeptical from the start, of course. But listening to him elaborate on the symbols being part of education – only to be less available once people leave school – sounded just like a perfect – and horribly exploitative – business scheme to me. Highlighting other benefits of symbol use just made this point even clearer.
During the Q&A – to be fair – Simon Detheridge did receive a bit of a grilling and did well in answering. But again, what he said only confirmed what I felt. Being asked to give a ballpark figure of licensing for the use of symbols on a site such as Curry’s for example – the answer was around £2500 (to be paid by the website owner). The browser the company developed to interpret exisiting websites and translate them into symbols would cost the user a yearly licensing fee of £60 (to be paid by the user).
I think these prices are an absolute outrage – profiting from disability is simply wrong. Full stop.
No reason can be given which makes this right. One line sticks in my head “it is not like we are taking people’s language away” (quoted from memory, Simon Detheridge, widgit). – sorry, that is exactly what you are doing! By charging for the use of what you call ‘standardised symbols’. How can you claim property of something that so many people rely on?
The development of the symbols will have taken a lot of research, work and time – no doubt. And I am by no means saying that the people involved do not deserve their money, of course they do. There are however other ways of bringing in money and still do right by the target group of disabled people. Open Source – charity with funding bodies – anything….
I could go on with my rant here but I will leave it at that…. enough for 1 day ;-)
UPDATE: here’s a quick video collage of the panel which the INMD team put up on YouTube.