So, just like user testing, it's important to accessibility-test your mobile app or site or mobile content, and it's important to know if users with disabilities are able to use your mobile app or site. The three approaches that you need to take simultaneously to do this right: test with users, in addition to using checker tools and the W3 guidelines.
So, you need a kind of triangulated approach. Now, a lot of the checker tools actually have the W3 guidelines in them, so it's really a combination of checker tools and user testing to get you to that last mile of realism and also to involve your users and find out what's going on. There are different categories of disability that you want to include: users that are blind, low vision; color blindness – you can use simulators online; there's some really good simulators that you can use.
Deaf and hard of hearing is for captioning. Make sure you cover invisible disabilities and neurodiversity in particular. And then motor disabilities – think wheelchair user. Blind users use screen readers; low-vision users use magnifiers, so like up to 300, 400 percent. And deaf and hard of hearing users are using closed captioning; that's mostly a video thing, and you'll have a sign interpreter from your deaf users because the way that deaf folks interact with content
I find is a little different. Keyboard enhancements for users with mobility disabilities. Copy testing or making sure that your content is comprehensible; remember that's important for mobile; it's important and plain English is particularly critical there. And then, of course, mobile versus desktop. Logistical concerns – so try and test in the user's native setup, like with their technology.
Don't give them your technology. Remember that for blind users at least the world is taken in through words and through sound, and so they're listening to the screen reader – it's talking to them as they're going through the mobile app. Let them listen to it in the normal speed. Most blind users listen to things really quickly and it goes like – that's really, really fast, like what would be four times scrubbing. When conducting access tests, make sure that they have their assistive technology
like their phone fully charged basically. Make sure you follow good note-taking guidelines of user testing, which is observation, asking them to think out loud and make sure you record the session for later. And the difference between access testing and user testing is with access testing, accessibility testing, or what's called holistic testing by the WCAG guidelines, but accessibility testing is a little more QA involved because it's kind of some technical broken things,
a lot more technical broken things. In fact, most of it is technically broken because things aren't tagged – you know – they can't access the mobile menu, because it's not tagged, it's not accessible, or they're testing another filter or drop-down and certain parts are tagged and other parts are not tagged. You can use an agency to recruit or you can reach out to disability rights organizations or attend local job fairs with folks with disabilities, a good way to do that.