This chapter introduces a range of evaluation methods that assist developers in the creation of interactive electronic products, services and environments (eSystems) that are both easy and pleasant to use for the target audience. The target audience might be the broadest range of people, including people with disabilities and older people or it might be a highly specific audience, such as university students studying biology. The chapter will introduce the concepts of accessibility, usability and user experience as the criteria against which developers should be evaluating their eSystems, and the iterative user- centred design lifecycle as the framework within which the development and evaluation of these eSystems can take place. Then a range of methods for evaluating accessibility, usability and user experience will be outlined, with information about their appropriate use and strengths and weaknesses.

The evaluation of accessibility, usability and user experience

This review gives an overview of the societal inequalities faced by people with intellectual disabilities, before focusing specifically on challenges people face accessing the Internet. Current access will be outlined along with the societal, support and attitudinal factors that can hinder access. Discussion of carer views of Internet use by people with intellectual disabilities will be covered incorporating consideration of the tension between protection, self-determination and lifestyle issues and gaining Internet access. We will address how impairment related factors may impede access and subsequently discuss how supports may be used to obfuscate impairments and facilitate access. We will move on from this to critically describe some of the potential benefits the Internet could provide to people with intellectual disabilities, including the potential for self-expression, advocacy and developing friendships. Finally, strategies to better include people with intellectual disabilities online will be given along with future research suggestions.

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Internet Access by People with Intellectual Disabilities: Inequalities and Opportunities

Assessing Section 508 compliance on federal e-government Web sites: A multi-method, user-centered evaluation of accessibility for persons with disabilities

The idea of conducting usability tests remotely emerged ten years ago. Since then, it has been studied empirically, and some software organizations employ remote methods. Yet there are still few comparisons involving more than one remote method. This paper presents results from a systematic empirical comparison of three methods for remote usability testing and a conventional laboratory-based think-aloud method. The three remote methods are a remote synchronous condition, where testing is conducted in real time but the test monitor is separated spatially from the test subjects, and two remote asynchronous conditions, where the test monitor and the test subjects are separated both spatially and temporally. The results show that the remote synchronous method is virtually equivalent to the conventional method. Thereby, it has the potential to conveniently involve broader user groups in usability testing and support new development approaches. The asynchronous methods are considerably more time-consuming for the test subjects and identify fewer usability problems, yet they may still be worthwhile.

What happened to remote usability testing?: an empirical study of three methods

Touchscreen computing devices such as the iPhone are becoming more common. However this technology is largely inaccessible to people with visual impairments. We present the results of a requirements capture study that illustrates the problems with touchscreen accessibility, and the choices visually impaired people make when choosing assistive technology. We investigate ways of overcoming touchscreen accessibility problems by comparing a raised paper overlay touchscreen based MP3 player, with a touchscreen gesture based player. Twelve blindfolded participants, and one visually impaired person, were able to operate both players, though there were problems with short impact related operations in the gesture player. From our results we provide guidelines for future designers, to help them exploit the potential of touchscreen technology for visually impaired people.

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Investigating touchscreen accessibility for people with visual impairments

Finding participants for evaluations with specific demographics can be a problem for usability and user experience specialists. In particular, finding participants with disabilities is especially problematic, yet testing with disabled people is becoming increasingly important. Two case studies are presented that explore using asynchronous remote evaluation techniques with disabled participants. These show that while quantitative data are comparable, the amount and richness of qualitative data are not likely to be comparable. The implications for formative and summative evaluations are discussed and a set of principles for local and remote evaluations with disabled users is presented.

Remote usability evaluations With disabled people

There appears to be a widespread belief within the web design community -- and possibly amongst website commissioners - that accessible sites cannot be visually pleasing. We present the results of accessibility testing of 100 websites with 51 disabled users that should dispel this belief. While there are aspects of accessibility that do affect visual design, such as visual structure, colour contrast and text size, these are aspects of design that can affect all users, not only disabled users. These design concerns must be considered if both the users' experience and business objectives are to be met.

Tension, what tension?: Website accessibility and visual design

This paper presents an incremental usability and accessibility framework for evaluating digital libraries. The results obtained from a case study, where four Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) services were evaluated, are also presented. The applicability of the framework to similar evaluations is identified.

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An incremental usability and accessibility evaluation framework for digital libraries

An Incremental Usability and Accessibility Evaluation Framework for Digital Libraries 2 . Nature of

It is a widespread belief amongst web designers and implementers that sites that are accessible to users with disabilities must by necessity be uninteresting and simple, particularly visually uninteresting -- plain, vanilla sites. It is tempting to believe that such sites do not pose interesting challenges to web designers and implementers. However, it is our contention that this belief is profoundly misguided. Certainly, a very plain, visually simple site is quite likely to be accessible (although this is not guaranteed). However, the opposite is not necessarily the case -- sites can be visually interesting and sophisticated and still highly accessible. Visual and interesting web design is largely orthogonal to accessibility and these two factors should not be seen as being in opposition to each other. Accessibility should rather be viewed as another challenge to designers and implementers, along with creating a site that is usable, interesting and appealing to mainstream users.

Neil King

Papers

Remote usability evaluations With disabled people

Tension, what tension?: Website accessibility and visual design

An incremental usability and accessibility evaluation framework for digital libraries

An Incremental Usability and Accessibility Evaluation Framework for Digital Libraries 2 . Nature of

Tension? what tension?: website accessibility and visual design