7 users share their struggles navigating the (sometimes inaccessible) digital world
On the eighth Global Accessibility Awareness Day, we asked a couple of questions to seven members of our Accessibility Collective with different types of access needs.
Back in 2001, the world celebrated the first Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD), a date created to get people around the world talking, thinking and learning about digital inclusion and how poorly designed products and services affect people with different disabilities.
To mark this year’s GAAD (16th May 2019), we asked two questions to seven members of our recently launched London Accessibility Collective. The purpose behind this service is to help our clients find people who use assistive technology or those who require additional support to access online services, in a way that fits within the agile sprint cycle. Not only does the Accessibility Collective make the recruitment of disabled users more effective, it also boasts a fixed price per participant and a direct booking process.
The goal is to empower both designers and those who want to share their experiences and more easily help to improve the digital landscape. Despite the amazing work of several organisations such as W3C, the feedback we regularly get from participants is that much of the web is still not accessible for many people.
These were the two questions we asked our Accessibility Collective members:
- Overall, how would you describe the level of accessibility across most websites and apps available?
- What is the biggest challenge you have faced when trying to use technology?
These were the answers we received.
Hasmukh | visual impairment
I personally find it difficult to navigate through websites with no useful vision, although it is improving all the time. With apps, I struggle to enter text to log in on a smartphone because you need to use touch gestures to click on icons.
I found that planning a journey or booking a holiday is challenging because speech screen readers don’t always read text or allow to check the right options.
Patrizia | visual impairment
I think that, in general, websites don’t offer too many options for people with disabilities. For example, the writing is generally standard (with the exception of some websites that have buttons with different font sizes), or there is no option for contrast, etc.
The one thing I find most difficult is definitely CAPTCHA with pictures. Shopping is easier with some websites and more complicated with others, but this depends on the seller.
Fiona | dyslexia
Websites and apps are accessible, but the problem is actually using them. I am dyslexic and too many words just make me turn away from some of them. I do not read large blocks of writing: for example, when terms and conditions come up, I don’t read them, but still have to click on them to progress. It’s the same with cookies and the requests to accept them: I can’t read the terms and that makes me feel vulnerable.
In general, reading makes me tired. Too many words not broken up with photos, diagrams or videos just turns me away. Also, if I have to fill in a form and there is no spell check on it, it drives me mad.
I mostly use my phone, so if there are certain things I can’t do on my phone, it frustrates me. For example, I sell things on eBay, but I find I have to go into eBay on my laptop to be able to do a refund. It would be so much easier if I could do it using my phone.
Another one — passwords for everything drive me crazy. My memory is poor due to suffering from dyslexia and passwords frustrate me. I also work with people with disabilities and I see others struggling with so many things like claiming benefits. Having the option to do it online doesn’t necessarily make things easier.
Robert | visual impairment
I would say that the overall level of accessibility across websites and apps is good, though there are still improvements to be made.
Websites and apps are becoming more interactive and focusing on visually pleasing content. It is important that developers do not leave accessibility out of their roadmap, thereby shutting out a whole audience demographic. Simple things such as the addition of alt-text to images and headings for easier webpage navigation can go a long way to making a website easier to use for those who rely on assistive technology.
The biggest issue I run into when using websites and apps with screen reading software is the ability to choose a date when filling out a form. Many travel websites will not let you enter the date manually, instead requiring you to navigate through a calendar that does not always function correctly with assistive technology. I have often been forced to look elsewhere when booking holidays, as I have been unable to independently complete the date entry fields.
Rhian | autism & visual impairment
I think the level of accessibility across most websites and apps varies wildly. Most social media is terrible: you can’t use ad blockers, you can’t turn off automatic download of media and they usually don’t work with my screen readers. It’s the most frustrating thing, as it would probably be the easiest way to share things in my social group.
My local council website is also terrible — the adverts! Several videos all playing at once and terrible load speeds make trying to get anything done so, so hard.
The government website and the NHS websites, however, are great — super simple, easy to use, and work really well with assistive technology.
I think the biggest challenge I’ve come across with technology is one I’m facing at the moment. I live in a flat over an estate agency, we can’t put bins out and get 40 grey refuse bags delivered twice a year. It’s been eight months since we last had a delivery and have no way of getting rid of rubbish. The website barely works and the adverts mean I can’t always handle it: it’s a nightmare!
Sally | mobility impairment
It varies a lot. Some websites provide options to improve the visual accessibility: for example, the provision of subtitles for videos, or different coloured backgrounds and fonts. Increasing font size is particularly difficult in apps, when you start with a small screen on a phone, and then you often lose a crucial part of the content by enlarging it or can’t close a preliminary sub-window — like those about cookies, which prevent you progressing until you deal with them — because the ‘close’ option is now off-screen. It’s hard to move what’s on screen to find it and often it’s just stuck and won’t let you do anything.
Also, there are rarely options to do things on-screen in any way that might make it easier; or if it is available, it’s very hard to work out what that is.
The biggest challenge for me are the questions you have to answer to prove you’re not a robot. They are often really difficult to manage and I get asked to do it more than once if I get it wrong the first time. I get worried I will get blocked or locked out of accounts if I keep getting it wrong.
Kasia | visual impairment
It varies across the board: some websites are fully accessible (e.g. the government ones, or universities/education websites in general), through some with limited accessibility to a few which have barely any accessibility at all. It is usually the commercial websites that are not that accessible; some of the banks/building societies’ online pages are not fully accessible either.
Because of this, I never shop online by myself. I find it difficult as I don’t find websites like Amazon fully accessible. An important factor is that, on these websites, I have to make payments as well: the combination of the lack of accessibility and having to share my bank details online means I am not comfortable to do this on my own. I also find filling in forms, especially the ones with CAPTCHA, challenging at times.
To find out more about our Accessibility Collective and our fixed price accessibility recruitment options in London and Bristol, get in touch with our Senior Project Manager Alex Evans — alex@peopleforresearch.co.uk.
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