learning - Academic Conferences Limited

Anne Jelfs and Chetz Colwell
To try and overcome any problems associated with talking aloud Wright and Monk (1991) told users
to think of themselves as ‘co-evaluators’ of the system. Wright and Monk’s ‘relaxed’ approach allows
the evaluator to ask questions of the participant, which maximizes the possibility of identifying and
correctly interpreting the problems experienced by the participant. Hertzum, Hansen & Andersen
(2009) found that relaxed think aloud makes participants search more comprehensively and in a
different way to the classic think aloud approach.
Another accepted form of evaluation of electronic provision is heuristic evaluation. Heuristic
evaluation is conducted by studying a user interface and then forming estimation about what is good
and bad about it. The evaluation is conducted according to a certain set of rules, such as those listed
in typical guidelines documents (Nielsen 1993). According to Nielsen heuristic evaluation and user
testing should be alternated, because these two usability practices have been shown to find fairly
distinct sets of usability problems. Some evaluators think that heuristic evaluation is valuable as a
testing method because it can easily be conducted with the assistance and equipment generally
available on a college or university campus (Miller-Cochran & Rodrigo 2006). This is important when
there is little or no budget put aside for user testing as many education providers do not allow for the
money needed for usability testing which according to Nielson & Norman (2000) is very short sighted.
We have found that heuristic evaluation is useful when we conduct testing in an ‘expert’ role where
we give initial feedback to developers before bringing in any students for our studies.
3. Usability and accessibility combined
In our work we work together to achieve an understanding of the needs for all groups of students and
to produce reports to the developers without conflicting feedback. As Kelly, Phipps and Swift (2004)
say it might appear desirable to simply include usability alongside accessibility but to do so there is a
need to be aware of potential conflicts due to usability preferences that conflict with accessibility
guidelines. Our design of the evaluation means that such conflicts are minimised and in most cases
we have no differing views.
Accessibility represents an important step toward independence for individuals with disabilities and it
also guarantees broader access for all users of the web (Foley 2003). His claim is that accessible web
design creates pages that are often easier to read, easier to navigate and faster to download. It is
acknowledged by some researchers that little or no consideration is given to the real participants in
the learning experience, such as disabled learners (DeMarsico, Kimani, Mirabella et al 2006). These
researchers see disabled students as a rich source of guidance on how to address accessibility
issues in the development and usage of e-learning material and systems. Whereas they see usability
as a separate, but related concept, and that usability and accessibility experts should work side by
side. However, DeMarsico et al in their publication are not conducting this type of testing.
There is a lot of consideration of the value of working together for usability and accessibility mainly
because it is seen as ‘Sites that are developed to meet accessibility standards are generally, but not
always more usable in their practical application. This may be attributable to the similarity between the
concepts shared by both accessibility and usability, such as the inclusion of appropriately contrasting
colour schemes and the exclusion of non-browser compliant elements such as JavaScript on web
pages’ (Yates 2005 p182). He goes on to say that websites that conform to accessibility and usability
standards ‘will support the creation of web environments which perform their function more effectively
and provide an enhanced experience for the use: thus accessibility and usability standards are central
to good design methodologies.’ (Yates 2005 p182). A different view is that of Byerley and Chambers
(2002) who found that often accessibility does not equate to usability where adherence to the law can
make the website less usable for others.
Although others have worked with disabled and non-disabled users to assess the accessibility of
websites these have been relatively small numbers (Harrison & Petrie 2006). Harrison and Petrie do
however say that ‘Many guidelines focus specifically on either accessibility or usability rather than
evaluating both simultaneously, making them less efficient.’ (p 241). This is something we endorse
and is why we have been conducting these types of evaluations over a number of years and
numerous websites, both educational and commercial and feel in a position to discuss our findings.
Harrison and Petrie go on to say that ‘The fact that participants with disabilities find more problems
reinforces the concept that they make the best test participants.’ (Harrison & Petrie, 2006 p 245).
Although we acknowledge that disabled participants do make good participants, where we differ is
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