Accessibility Poker – We Checked Our Design

This is a friendly reminder, that all stories with George are fiction.

The story so far

By assigning Accesibility Points to tickets with obstacles for blind people, it is easier to prioritise work. A user story cannot contain actions with more than 5 Acccessibility Points, so that the users can use the web site in an accessible way.

The progress so far

“Hi George.”
“Hi Polly. How are things going?”
“The sales are going up again. The web team decided to test for accessibility in earlier phase. The code is analysed, before it will be used. This was automated and it saves us a lot of time.”

“That sounds great, Polly. You are doing good stuff.”
“My team is doing good stuff, George.
There is something different.”

The numbers so far

“The percentage of people leaving the web site from the home page is still higher than the same percentage before blind people visited our web site. We checked our design and we assume that people have a bad experience.”

“Where did you get these numbers from?”
“We use analytics on our web site. These numbers are very useful for our marketing team. This way we can tell which products are interesting for our visitors.”

“You collect a lot of data. Did you ask for permission?”
“Yes, we use a cookie banner.In order to save time and energy,  we bought one.”
“Did you test this cookie banner on accessibility?”

“This is really something new. Do you have any articles or blog posts to share?”
“I put a link to a blog post about cookie banners in the chat.”

“Let me open that one.
The title does not sound right.
How did we miss this, George?”
“Research is an underrated skill in testing, Polly.

Your company is using software from suppliers for your web site. Your automatic checks will not uncover all the accessibility pro­blems in their code.”

“We should do more research.”
“How do you feel about it?”
“I feel bad.”

“What did you do a few minutes ago?”
“I was gathering information, so we could decide about the next steps. Information like articles and blog posts would be really useful.”
“How would you describe this in 1 word?”
“Research.”

“In our first call you told me, that your team had found the WCAG guidelines. These are very useful for accessibility of your web site.”
“How would you dall that?”
“Research.”
“How do you feel now?”
“Much better.”

“George, I have a question for you.
If this call was turned into a blog post and you would read it, how would you call it?”
“Research.
You beat me in my own game.”

“George, what could go wrong, if we do not pay attention to the suppliers?”

The pain so far

“Polly, do you know someone with a diet?”
“I have a friend who has a gluten free diet.”
“What would you do while cooking for this friend?”
“I definitely would check the ingredients for the meal. I would also use clean cooking utentils. Before cooking I would clean the kitchen table. Just to be sure.”

“If you would have too little time to make a dish, would you use a precooked dish from the shop?”
“No, of course not. I would carefully read which ingredients were used for this dish. Gluten should not be included. In case of doubt I would check a website containing a list of gluten free products.”

“What would happen with your friend, if you would use ingredients with gluten?”
“My friend would have at least 1 bad day. Wait.
In our case the shop is my supplier and I have to check its’ products.

But what would happen, if a web site is not accessible, George?”
“After an action with 13 or more Accessibility Points, a blind user would have too little energy. This could lead to headache, frustation or anger.”

The dependencies so far

“This does not feel right to me.
Let me share my screen, George.
This is the web site of my company. It looks fine to me.”

“Polly, there is a text balloon in the lower right corner. This would probably open a chat window with one of your sales people.”
“You described it well.”
“It looks a bit different. There might be a chance, that you bought this software from a supplier.”

“So this chat window might have not been checked on accessibility?”
“This is quite possible.

I also notice a strange button at the bottom of the page. The shape is different from the other buttons.”
“Let me click on that one, George. That is strange: some dialog pops up.
I close this dialog.

Wait. Let me scroll down. There are similar buttons over here.
Do you see this picture over here? It is on a button.
Does it have an alternative text? I wonder.

This is strange. Let me look at another page.
This text over here. Is this picture or a normal text?
And over here … I see another thing.
It is ..”

The exploration so far

“Polly, you are too fast for an old man like me.”
“O, I did not intend to bother you. I stop sharing my screen.”
“Thank you, Polly.”

“You look bad, George. Do you feel right?”
“I have to go, Polly. I will be fine. Bye.”
“Wait. Where are you going?”

The worries so far

“Hi Polly.”
“Hi John.”
“Polly, you look concerned.
Do you think that we can keep the visitors on our web site?”
“It is possible. George gave me some good clues.
There is something different.”

To be continued.