Accessibility Poker – This is my view.
This is a friendly reminder, that all stories with George are fiction.
The story so far
By assigning Accessibility Points to tickets with obstacles for blind people, it is easier to prioritise work. A user story cannot contain more than 1 action with more than 5 Accessibility Points. This way users can use the web site in an accessible way. Also, the sum of Accessibility Points for a single task should be limited.
Some problem
“Hi George.”
“Hi Polly.
How are things going?”
“During the A/B testing something noticeable happened: sales dropped enormously.”
“What happened, Polly?“
“They changed something to improve accessibility, George.
There was a new page and they thought that they did something pretty smart. Before, it had only a picture and some texts and they replaced it by a movie with a sound track and captions.
If someone was blind, then she or he could hear the movie. Deaf people could read the captions in the movie. We thought that we did a decent job but the A/B testing proved otherwise. We cannot find a solution. George. How do I solve this problem?”
“Polly, your team thought that people were either blind or deaf. If someone is both blind and deaf, what would be the use of sound and captions of the movie?“
“They cannot hear the movie and they cannot see the movie, so they don’t get any information. George. That is really insightful.”
Some thing
“There is something different.
In May sales also dropped. We did the promotion for haptic gloves. Something went wrong though. The sales went up, after the promotion article on the homepage disappeared.“
“Could you tell me more about this article, Polly?“
“Of course, George. It was for a new haptic glove for the fashion industry. It also included a movie.”
“Can you still play this movie, Polly?”
“Sure, that is easy.”
“Let’s do a simple experiment: you play the movie without showing it to me. At the same time, you tell what is being shown for 10 seconds.”
“George, I found the movie. Let me start:
A user with haptic glove … fabric … screen … appreciation …. Order… happy.
That were 10 tough seconds. It was too hard to tell what happened on the screen. ”
“What would usera with a visual impairment experience?”
“I think that they have a lot of problems to recognise the pictures, George.”
“Indeed, for me this story would be really difficult to follow.”
“You said: “me”.”
“I mean a user with a visual impairment.”
“George, you have a visual impairment. That’s why you got a headache, when I was quickly browsing a website a few calls ago.”
“You are smart, Polly.”
“Your secret is safe with me, George.”
“Thank you, Polly.”
Some personas
“George, something with the Accessibility Points will go wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“At the moment we have personas for a blind person and a deaf person. Now we need personas for a blind and deaf person and a person with a visual impairment.”
“You know, that there are different visual impairments, Polly?”
“then we need to use more personas. This is my view.
I do not like to add multiple numbers of Accessibility Points to a ticket. It is too much administration.”
“What is the minimal number of Accessibility Points you need?”
“At least 1.”
“If there are 7 numbers of Accessibility Points for different personas. Which one would you take?”
“I would take the highest. This sounds lean to me.”
Some offer
“It’s almost 9 o’clock. This was our last call. So, it’s time to say goodbye.”
“There is no other meeting lined up for me, Polly.”
“In that case I have a special offer for you George. You can work for our company full time get all usual benefits like health insurance stock options. A lot of colleagues are thrilled to work with you.”
“Polly, half hour a day is more than enough work for me.”
“George, this is hard to sell to management though.“
“I’m sorry, Polly.”
“Thank you for all the support. My team and I really appreciated it. Take care. Goodbye, George.
“Good luck. Goodbye, Polly.”
Some disappointment
“Good morning, Polly.”
“Good morning, John.”
“Did George take our offer?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Did we not show that we have the right mentality and use technology in the right way?”
“It was something different.”
The end.