Accessibility of Mobile Services

Veronika Jermolina, AbilityNet 11:30–12:10 P02-C

Introduction

Veronika Jermolina (Accessibility and Usability Consultant at AbilityNet)

Presenting research project “Accessibility of Mobile Devices” carried out in 2008

Research conducted at City University London (supervised by Dr. P. Zaphiris) & AbilityNet

David Banes can’t be here today hence the title of the presentation slightly changed

Presentation Outline

Accessibility and the reasons for accessible design

Why “mobile services”

How data was gathered

Findings

Conclusions & further work

Thanks & your questions

(Bibliography)

(User quotations)

The Carrot & Stick of Accessibility

Carrots

Penetration of mobile phones in Western Europe 112% and 121% in the UK (Informa Telecoms & Media 2007; ITU 2008)

14-20% of the UK population estimate to have a disability (DOH, 2001)

Estimated annual spending power is £50bn in the UK (DRC, 2005)

Repercussions on non-disabled and world-wide populations (Kurniawan & Zaphiris, 2007)

The Stick

Disability Discrimination Act

Web Accessibility

Web Accessibility (Henry & Duffy 2005)

The Web can be accessible if multiple components work together

If one component fails, there can be workarounds

But this makes more likely for accessibility to be overlooked

Mobile Service Stakeholders

Handset manufacturer –handsets and software to run the phone

Mobile network provider – network coverage, calling, SMS, internet browsing; decides on applications to be bundled with its firmware

Content or service provider –applications for bundling with firmware and for download

Assistive technology provider – allows disabled users to access all the features of a mobile phone

End user – uses the service for its purpose.

Stakeholders need to work together to provide accessible service

Research MethodsQuestionnaire / User Testing

Questionnaire

Disseminated through the Web

Mean age was 38 years old

Contract – 58.3%

PAYG – 36.1%

Percentage of Respondents by Impairment Type

Vision

Motor/physical

Hearing

Dyslexia

Learning

Cognitive

Other

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80%

69.4%

27.8%

13.9%

8.3%

2.8%

2.8%

2.8%

Percentage of Respondents

Impairment

Usability Testing

Mean age was 41.5 years

8 people

Visually impaired – 5

Dyslexia – 2

Motor – 1

Hearing – 1

Learning – 1

6 people had Nokia N95

Vision

Dyslexia

Motor/physical

Hearing

Learning

0 1 2 3 4 5 6

5

2

1

1

1

Percentage of Respondents with Impairment Types

Number of Testers

Impairment

Findings

Overview of Findings

What people like about their mobiles

Market share and penetration of mobile manufacturers

ATs used

Choosing, Buying, and Changing a handset

Mobile internet use and barriers

Other inaccessible Apps

A brief note on the iPhone

The Good Stuff: Size, Access, Functionality

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35% 33.3%

18.8%16.7%

12.5%8.3%

6.3%4.2%

Mobile: Most Liked Features

Feature

Perc

enta

ge o

f Res

pons

es

Market Share

World penetration rates – 40% Nokia, 15% Samsung, 9% Motorola, 9% LG Electronics, 8% Sony Ericsson

Apple iPhone penetration not in the top 5 at the time of research (IDC, 2008)

Market Share vs. Respondent Share

Nokia Samsung Motorola LG Sony Ericsson HTC0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

39.9%

14.9%9.2% 9.1% 8.0%

63.9%

11.1%

2.8%8.3% 8.3%

Market Share Respondents Share

Assistive Technology

The use of AT and customisation was significantly lower between mobile device users when compared to PC users

Screen reader

Text & background

Magnification

Voice recognition

Braille display

Keyboard only

Specialist mouse

Spell check

Keyboard large stickers

Talk by text

19

6

5

4

3

2

2

1

1

15

1

1

Mobile AT PC AT

Number of Respondents

Choosing a Handset

Opinion of the community (contacts, friends, AT suppliers)

My Talks provider would let me know if “anything nice has come out”

“I had a brief trial of the Nokia N95 handset in the shop, but was not convinced until a colleague showed the text resizing feature”

Compatibility with Talks

Brand loyalty & historical factors

“I’m a Nokia fan”

“Someone mentioned that Vodafone were giving away a bunch of Talks licences on Nokia handsets”

No way to try out competing products

“Someone would have let me know” if anything better [than Talks on Nokia] came out

Choosing a Handset (cont)

“My choice of mobile phone is driven by my passion for technology and the latest features available”

“I think next time I’ll buy a phone that matches my RSI and not my outfit”

Changing a Handset

“Just grief”

Licence fees for ATs

Backing up and Restoring content is problematic

Nokia’s PC Suite inaccessible - “one big graphic”

Buying a handset

Awareness of accessibility needs and features among shop staff is very low making seeking advice in shops discouraging

“ People in the shops are confusing and distracting. I once got into a Vodafone shop to get some assistance with my handset but a member of staff told me that I should change my phone because it was “rubbish”. He tried to sell me a new contract. My disability is not obvious...”

No “try before you buy” option leaves no way to successfully verify if a handset would suit their access needs or not

Installing a screen reader is the pre-requisite for exploring handsets in the VI group

Mobile Internet Use

Very low mobile internet take-up among respondents

Non-disabled mobile internet use

UK population = 61.4m (Statistics.gov 2008)

Mobile penetration at 121% = 74.3m handsets

Yet, only about 17m mobile internet users (MDA, 2008)

Mobile Internet barriers

Cost

Surprise charges discourage people from using it

Formatting

Clicking every link is a lottery – it can be 1MB (costing you £3 on some PAYG plans)

Mobile Internet barriers (cont)

Complicated pay plans

Inaccessible mobile provider sites

Use of jargon – “web’n’walk day pass on U-fix and pay as you go” (T-mobile)

“Unlimited” defined in highly inaccessible “Terms and conditions”

Complex technology

Choosing the access point

“It’s back to the payment thing –

Oh no! I don’t really know how

to get out of here”

Other software currently inaccessible

Camera

Inaccessible due to the lack of clearly labelled control

GPS and Maps Nokia Maps completely inaccessible to

the screen readers

Nokia Maps were difficult to use and counter-intuitive for sighted participants

“I don’t really know if I’m being charged for accessing the Maps. It’s not a nice feeling”

The users preferred the working commercial alternatives, such as Wayfinder Access & Trekker Maestro (costly!)

“Wayfinder’s brilliant! They listen to their customers. I like giving directions to taxi drivers, the ones who don’t have GPS”

iPhone

The incidence of iPhone amongst the survey respondents was zero

Caused an initial positive reaction amongst some participants

“I was in the States and went to an Apple shop to find out about what accessibility features there were. None, I was told”

Was completely inaccessible to the blind participants

Upset by the complete disregard for accessibility

“An expensive brick”

Was poorly accessible to the RSI participant due to cold metal panel and small fonts.

The web page zoom feature was helpful to the partially sighted participant

New 3GS accessibility features need testing with real users

Can you trust this research?

Statistically significant results were not one of the objectives of the project

Therefore representativeness and generalisability cannot be guaranteed

We should try to study and accommodate diverse user needs without the need for statistically significant results

Conclusions

Conclusions

Holistic approach to mobile services

We might see it firmware, software, customer services, provider websites, price plans, access points, high street shops

… BUT to the user it’s all the same (in)accessible service

Nokia are ahead of the competition amongst the visually impaired

There are fewer ATs (or awareness?) for mobiles compared to PCs

Community and loyalty define the buying choice

Changing a phone is challenging

Testing in shops is difficult

The mobile internet is currently inaccessible

Camera & Video and Maps & GPS are difficult to use or inaccessible

iPhone introduced accessibility features 2 years after first release

Some Ideas for Further Work

Test for accessibility – content, applications, and other important parts of the mobile service, such as the mobile operators’ websites

Provide fair “try before you buy” opportunities

Use user-centred design and reach out to users with relevant information about products and services (e.g. “other people bought this phone”)

Provide the facility to personalise text size and background colours

Participants, especially Andre Louis

Kath Moonan & Caleb Tang (AbilityNet)

Nigel Lewis (AbilityNet) and Dr. Panayiotis Zaphiris (City University London)

Join Us for Accessibility 2.0 Conference on 22nd September

Topics: Mobile, Understanding Deafness, Graphic Design, Silverlight …

Speakers from: Yahoo!, BBC, Opera, Microsoft …

http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/accessibility2/

Contact

veronika.jermolina@abilitynet.org.uk

Twitter @welikethis

Special Thanks

Bibliography DDA 1995 (c.50) [online]

http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1995/ukpga_19950050_en_4#pt3-pb1-l1g19

Department of Health (2001) Survey Health for England [online] http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/doh/survey01/disa/disa01.htm

Henry S.L., (2008) Essential Components of Web Accessibility [online] http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/components.php

IDC (2008) IDC – Press Release [online] (Updated 31 July 2008) http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS21369208

Informa (2007) Western European Subscriptions By Country. Mobile Communications Europe [online] 466 (Updated 15 April 2008) http://www.informatm.com/pdf/Mar-2007/29/mce442_032007.pdf

International Telecommunications Union (2008) Worldwide mobile cellular subscribers to reach 4 billion mark late 2008 [online] (Updated 25 September 2008) http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2008/29.html

Kurniawan , S., Zaphiris, P. (2007) Advances in Universal Web Design and Evaluation [e-book] Chapter 1, Web Accessibility and the Needs of Users with Disabilities, Aspasia Dellaporta, Cimex Media Ltd., UK http://books.google.co.uk

Mobile Data Association (2008) Latest WAP Figures [online] http://www.text.it/mediacentre/wap_figures.cfm

User Quotations

I used to use my phone as a modem. Then I received a bill for £30 for using it. I didn’t know that I could do it cheaper.

T9... If it could remember your preferred option would be nice. Sometimes it forgets. And it drives me crazy!

I can’t take photographs, I can’t do video.

I want to take a photo of my friend’s baby. He smells so lovely!

Just because I can’t see doesn’t mean I wouldn’t want to take a picture or a video to share with my family. I’m going on a cruise next month…

The [mobile] internet is rubbish! It’s about confidence, so I stopped trying

Wayfinder’s brilliant! They listen to their customers. I like giving directions to taxi drivers, the ones who don’t have GPS.

The GPS with Nokia Maps doesn’t work. Seriously, I don’t know a single person for whom it works.

Does your condition affect your choice of mobile phone? No! [laughs] Being addicted to technology affects my choice!

I don’t really know if I’m being charged for accessing the Maps. It’s not a nice feeling.

I’d like it to blend in

It’s the iPhone! It’s quite cold. That might put me off immediately, using it outside;

[iPhone] I don’t have big hands, but those keys are very small.