Summary

• Results of usability tests of 19 websites with users with several different types of disabilities who are using a range of assistive technology:
  • blind users using screen readers
  • blind users using Braille readers
  • low-vision users using screen magnifiers
  • motor-impaired users
• Test data collected mainly in the United States, with some additional studies in Japan to ensure the international applicability of the recommendations
  • A total of 104 users participated in the usability studies:
  • 84 users with disabilities
  • 20 non-disabled users who served as a control group
• 75 detailed design guidelines

This report addresses the usability of websites and intranets. The report should be used together with the standards for technical accessibility of web pages. Obviously, technical accessibility is a pre-condition for usability: if users cannot get at the content of the web pages, they also cannot use the website. Technical accessibility is necessary, but not sufficient for usability of a design. Even if a site is theoretically accessible because it follows the technical accessibility standards to the letter, it can still be very hard to use for people with disabilities.

The fact that technical accessibility is insufficient to guarantee great usability, ease of learning, and high user performance should come as no surprise. After all, countless usability studies of websites and intranets have documented severe usability problems, low success rates, and sub-optimal user performance, even when testing users with no disabilities. Being able to see everything on a webpage certainly doesn't guarantee that you will know what to do on the page or the optimal way to perform your task. This observation holds equally true for users with disabilities: just because a site is technically accessible doesn't mean that it will be easy or fast to perform tasks on the site.

This report addresses the second level in improving the user experience of websites and intranets for people with disabilities. Yes, you must ensure technical accessibility but you should also ensure good usability, ease of use, and high productivity for employees and customers with disabilities.

> Read Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox about this study

Table of Contents

148-page report by Kara Pernice and Jakob Nielsen

1. Executive Summary
2. Overview of This Research
3. Current State of Affairs
4. Assistive Technology Users: Observed Behavior
5. Guidelines
   • Do Not Abandon the Good Design Rules You Already Know
   • Graphics and Multimedia
   • Pop-Up Windows, Rollover Text, New Windows, and Cascading Menus
   • Links and Buttons
   • Page Organization
   • Intervening Pages
   • Forms and Fields
   • Presenting Text
   • Search
   • Shopping
   • Tables and Frames
   • Trust, Strategy, and Company Image
6. International: United States and Japan
7. Participants in the Study: General Information
8. Participants in the Quantitative Study
9. Participants in the Qualitative Study
10. Websites Studied
11. Test Tasks
12. Assistive Technology, References, and Pricing
13. About Disabilities and Assistive Technology Usage
14. Methodology
15. Accessibility “Audit” Software
16. A Note about Government Efforts
17. Resources
18. About the Authors
19. Acknowledgements

Sites Tested

• Charles Schwab (Large investment company)
• Chicago Transit Authority (Public transportation system for the city of Chicago)
• Target (Large retail/e-commerce company)
• Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Museum/non-profit organization)
• The Hoover Dam (Tourist attraction)
• Real Audio (High-tech company)
• Guru.com (Job recruiting/seeking)
• Internal Revenue Service (U.S. government)
• Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. government)
• New York City Department of Sanitation (U.S. local government)
• Major League Baseball (Very large company)
• Ticketmaster (E-commerce site, real-time)
• Abercrombie & Fitch (E-commerce site, clothing; sells internationally)
• Japanese prime minister's official page (Japanese government)
• Japanese Weather Association, JWA (Japanese government)
• Otsuka Corp. (Very large Japanese company: drug manufacturer)
• E-phone (Japanese high-tech company: Internet phone service)
• Ways shop (Japanese e-commerce site )
• Lake Yamanaka (Japanese non-profit organization/tourist attraction)

What's Special About This Report?

There are many other publications about accessibility. How is this report different?

This report is unique because it is based purely on empirical evidence from user testing: it shows what actually happens when real people with disabilities use real websites. Other publications are based on technical analysis of coding standards or focus on legal issues and made-up government regulations that often have very little connection with reality and don't particularly help disabled users.

There are certainly some benefit to these two other approaches, but if you want to know what actually works for disabled users based on observations of real user behavior, you need this report.

Who Should Read This Report?

• Anybody who is responsible for the design or implementation of websites
• Intranet designers in companies that want to promote equal opportunity employment
• Executives responsible for accessibility strategy or policy, particularly if they are committed to going beyond the surface level of compliance with technical accessibility regulations and want to ensure real service for those of their customers and employees who are disabled

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