Screen-Reader Usability at a Standards-Compliant E-Commerce Site
Published: Jun 20, 2007Joe Clark did a Web-accessibility research based on an E-commerce Web site that was redesigned with Web standards in mind. The revised site used semantic HTML markup that usually passes validation tests and also incorporated many common accessibility features.
A study was carried out with screen-reader users to determine how well compliance with Web standards and accessibility guidelines translated into actual usability and accessibility.
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Two participants were surveyed. One participant could complete all tasks in the study, sometimes with difficulty, while another participant, using an earlier screen-reader version, could accomplish no tasks in the study. Tasks took twice as long for screen-reader users than for a nondisabled subject also studied.
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Specific features of standards-compliant coding are a clear factor in the first participant’s experience, while an older screen reader’s inability to handle valid HTML is a factor in the case of the second participant.
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It appears that mere standards compliance does not always translate into full accessibility for screen-reader users. First of all, the screen readers themselves fall down on the job of interpreting compliant HTML and CSS. Moreover, some site designs whose interfaces are understandable when viewed in a Gestalt do not translate well into sequential viewing.
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Even with the limited cohort base in this study, it is apparent that relatively minor site improvements could remediate most of the problems encountered in the survey.
Continue to read the full research publication on Joe Clark’s Web site.
