Section 5.3: Conducting Accessibility Evaluations and Testing, Part 3
Conducting User Testing
Meaningful user testing has many different aspects to consider, such as selecting appropriate audiences with which to test, selecting tasks that represent the site, and analyzing the feedback from the user. However, the basic idea of user testing is to obtain feedback about the usability of a Web site from individuals with and without disabilities. You can then observe how they attempt to accomplish the task, noting what difficulties they encounter or where they report confusion as well as what seemed to work. Any pattern of errors that you observe leads to the areas that you then target for improvement.
Users do not typically know accessibility guidelines so they may not know why something doesn't work, but they will know when something isn't working. You can use the accessibility standards and guidelines to help identify areas that did not work for your users.
For more information on user testing with individuals with disabilities, visit
