Presentation for Assistive Technologies and Universal Design

WU JIAYIDepartment of Electronics and Computer Science

January 2009

Overview

1. Evaluates the usability and accessibility of two softwares.

2. Evaluates the usability and accessibility of two websites

3. Assistive Technology description and analysis.

Usability Evaluation for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

Ten Usability Heuristic by Jakob Nielsen [1]

Visibility of system status Match between system and the real world User control and freedom Consistency and standards Error prevention Recognition rather than recall Flexibility and efficiency of use Aesthetic and minimalist design Help users recognize, diagnose, and recover from errors Help and documentation

Fast Dial in Google Chrome

Bookmarking in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

1. In Firefox, user can bookmark a page by simply dragging the tab of the page to the bookmark bar.

2. in Chrome, the quickest way to do so is to use keyboard shortcuts to bookmark it and select a folder to hold the bookmark

Accessibility for Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox

1. Use the software accessibility checklist [2] from U.S. Department of Justice as evaluation guideline

2. Evaluation the keyboard access, screen elements, icons, sounds, displays, etc.

Problem with Google Chrome

1. Shortcuts

2. JavaScript, Image disable

Problem with Google Chrome

High Contrast Mode (Left: Chrome, Right: Firefox)

Assistive Technologies Analysis

Left: Chrome Right: Firefox , these information are accessed by Active Accessibility Object Inspector.

Usability of Two Websites

BBC.co.uk and Timesonline.co.uk

Web Site Usability Checklist by Larisa Thomason [3]

Good Usability Features in BBC.co.uk

Web Portal

Good Usability Features in BBC.co.uk

“Explore the BBC” section in BBC.co.uk

Good Usability Features in Timesonline.co.uk

Headlines Position

Good Usability Features in Timesonline.co.uk

Popular Keywords

Popular Articles

Accessibility Evaluation of Two Websites

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 1.0) [4]

Browser and OS Compatibility

Assistive Technologies Analysis

BBC.co.uk itself provides a lot of assistive supports

Timesonline.co.uk does not provides any assistive supports, relies on external tools.

Thank You!

References 1. Nielsen, J. Ten Usability Heuristics. 2005 [cited 2009 Jan 1st];

Available from: http://www.useit.com/papers/heuristic/heuristic_list.html. 2. Software Accessibility Checklist. [cited 2009 Jan 2nd]; Available

from: http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/508/archive/oldsoftware.html. 3. Thomason, L. [cited 2009 Dec 3rd]; Available from:

http://www.netmechanic.com/news/vol7/design_no4.htm. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. [cited 2009 Jan 1st];

Available from: http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/