Barriers common to mobile and disabled web users

World Wide Web accessibility and best practice audits and evaluations are becoming increasingly complicated, time consuming, and costly because of the increasing number of conformance criteria which need to be tested. In the case of web access by disabled users and mobile users, a number of commonalities have been identified in usage, which have been termed situationally-induced impairments; in effect the barriers experienced by mobile web users have been likened to those of visually disabled and motor impaired users. In this case, we became interested in understanding if it was possible to evaluate the problems of mobile web users in terms of the aggregation of barriers-to-access experienced by disabled users; and in this way attempt to reduce the need for the evaluation of the additional conformance criteria associated with mobile web best practice guidelines. We used the Barrier Walkthrough (BW) method as our analytical framework. Capable of being used to evaluate accessibility in both the disabled and mobile contexts, the BW method would also enable testing and aggregation of barriers across our target user groups.We tested 61 barriers across four user groups each over four pages with 19 experts and 57 non-experts focusing on the validity and reliability of our results. We found that 58% of the barrier types that were correctly found were identified as common between mobile and disabled users. Further, if our aggregated barriers alone were used to test for mobile conformance only four barrier types would be missed. Our results also showed that mobile users and low vision users have the most common barrier types, while low vision and motor impaired users experiencing similar rates of severity in the barriers they experienced. We conclude that the aggregated evaluation results for blind, low vision and motor impaired users can be used to approximate the evaluation results for mobile web users.     

GOMS analysis as a tool to investigate the usability of web units for disabled users

Guideline compliance is a necessary but not sufficient condition to guarantee the usability of web units by disabled users, since efficiency-related issues can be as exclusive for disabled users as violations to basic guidelines. This paper shows that Goals, Operators, Methods and Selection rules (GOMS) analysis, which is an established method in user interface design, can be adapted to evaluate the efficiency of interface designs for disabled users. As examples, several GOMS models for the interaction behavior of disabled users with web units are described, showing how such models can be used to answer concrete accessibility-related questions. Advantages and limitations of GOMS analysis are also discussed.     

Investigating the problems faced by older adults and people with disabilities in online environments

Irresponsible and inaccessible web design causes unnecessary problems to certain website users. By applying the web content accessibility guidelines to a website the amount of possible users who can successfully view the content of that site will increase especially for those who are in the disabled and older adult categories of online users. We present the results of assessing the compliance of a selection of websites with guidelines set out by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). It was found that most sites evaluated were inaccessible to those with disabilities. Only one of the selected sites passed all three priority levels set out by the WAI. In many cases, minor modifications to sites will make them accessible to people with disabilities. Therefore it can only be speculated that the reasons for lack of conformance may vary from lack of awareness of the issue, time constraints or the general stress of having to keep up with new technologies. Companies who overlook users with disabilities however may be doing so at long-term risk to their legal position, public image and ultimately business success.     

Investigating the problems faced by older adults and people with disabilities in online environments

Irresponsible and inaccessible web design causes unnecessary problems to certain website users. By applying the web content accessibility guidelines to a website the amount of possible users who can successfully view the content of that site will increase especially for those who are in the disabled and older adult categories of online users. We present the results of assessing the compliance of a selection of websites with guidelines set out by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). It was found that most sites evaluated were inaccessible to those with disabilities. Only one of the selected sites passed all three priority levels set out by the WAI. In many cases, minor modifications to sites will make them accessible to people with disabilities. Therefore it can only be speculated that the reasons for lack of conformance may vary from lack of awareness of the issue, time constraints or the general stress of having to keep up with new technologies. Companies who overlook users with disabilities however may be doing so at long-term risk to their legal position, public image and ultimately business success.     

Perceptions of web knowledge and usability: When sex and experience matter

Web users are now a mixture of consumer and web designer. As such, the context within which we are socialized about the web – as both male and female users – moderates the relationship between what we think we know about it and its usability to complete tasks. With online survey data from 2077 web users, we empirically examine the relationship between user perceptions of web knowledge (our confidence in what we think we know) and user beliefs about usability of the web (how easy and useful we believe it to be). We include a user’s sex and their website design experience as important moderators on this relationship. Results show a positive relationship between perceived web knowledge and web usability, and under the context of website design experience, more value is placed on the utility of the web, rather than on its ease of use. This moderation effect is stronger for female than it is for male web users. In summary, users with more confidence in their knowledge are more oriented towards the utility of the web than how easy it is to harvest that utility. Our work contributes to an understanding of the influence of the usage context within which the knowledge and beliefs of male and female users are socialized about web technology.     

Effect of Web navigation style in elderly users

The population is gradually aging, but only 4% of elderly people are Internet users. These data indicate the need to take action to bridge this digital divide.Several studies show that learning and memory processes are faster when there is familiarity with the learning object, and the user finds a clear internal correspondence between the previous experience and the current experience. The elderly make up one of the groups most affected by the digital divide, with less Internet access, knowledge, and use. The Internet is by definition an almost infinite structure of hypertext, where the user navigates by using information in an active way, and where the elderly lack previous experience with hypertextual applications. The aim of this study is to test the navigation variable by comparing two designs of the same email Web application with different navigation styles: linear vs hypertextual navigation.The study consisted of usability testing, employing the method of task analysis. Other assessment tools were also used, such as the eye tracker and post-session self-report questionnaires designed ad hoc for this study.A sample of 34 users from 60 to 83 years old and with heterogeneous previous experience with new technologies participated in the study. They performed A/B testing with a counterbalanced within-subject design. The linear navigation condition, compared to the hypertextual condition, obtained a higher success rate, lower performance time, better satisfaction ratings and greater user preference.The main contribution of this study is to demonstrate the relevance of navigation in systems oriented toward the elderly, indicating that linear navigation is more suitable for these users.     

Using extended web technologies to develop Bluetooth multi-platform mobile applications for interact with smart things

Nowadays the classic web paradigms are being subjected to changes; every day millions of users around the world use their Smartphones to access web applications from anywhere. The World Wide Web it is one of the biggest repositories of information in the world, and that information is stored in internet servers and repositories, but today in the real world there are many other information sources such as electronic devices with communication capabilities: smart appliances and sensor networks. The Smartphones are equipped with communication hardware elements like the Bluetooth module, which allows the Smartphone to exchange information with nearby electronic devices. Every day more and more mobile applications are being developed for native platforms that use Bluetooth’s communication module to send and receive information from different sources. Native mobile applications use the specific platform’s APIs to manage the Bluetooth communication actions (send and receive information, search for devices, etc.), however, web applications do not have technical capabilities to manage the Smartphone’s Bluetooth communication module and thereof cannot use that kind of information. The main objective of this research work is to design a novel framework that allows classic web applications to use information from nearby electronic devices. The proposed framework must be easy to use and able to be integrated with common web technologies. Developers can use this framework to include new information sources and data exchange procedures in an easy way. The new type of information can be merged with the web to develop or improve algorithms and web applications.     

The usability analysis with heuristic evaluation and analytic hierarchy process

Today people increasingly expect more from the functionality of a web site, so the web usability has emerged as an important topic. It is generally hard to renew the existing web sites to meet the changing demands of users. Therefore, the present study is aimed at detailing the usability problems of web sites. To this end, Heuristic Evaluation (HE) is used to identify the usability problems, and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to rate their severity. Finally, for a more user-friendly web site, a new approach to judging severity of usability problems is developed by integrating AHP into HE.

Relevance to industry

There is an increasing importance for higher usability in the web development industry and communities. Different usability evaluation techniques have been developed and incorporated into the process of web site design and development. This study proposes a new approach to reveal usability problems on a web site and to define solution priority of these problems.     

WhiteScript: Using social network analysis parameters to balance between browser usability and malware exposure

Drive-by-download malware exposes internet users to infection of their personal computers, which can occur simply by visiting a website containing malicious content. This can lead to a major threat to the user’s most sensitive information. Popular browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer and Maxthon have extensions that block JavaScript, Flash and other executable content. Some extensions globally block all dynamic content, and in others the user needs to specifically enable the content for each site (s)he trusts. Since most of the web-pages today contain dynamic content, disabling them damages user experience and page usability, and that prevents many users from installing security extensions. We propose a novel approach, based on Social Network Analysis parameters, that predicts the user trust perspective for the HTML page currently being viewed. Our system examines the URL that appears in the address bar of the browser and each of the inner HTML URL reputations, and only if all of them have a reputation greater than our predetermined threshold, it marks the webpage as trusted. Each URL reputation is calculated based on the number and quality of the links on the whole web pointing back to the URL. The method was examined on a corpus of 44,429 malware domains and on the top 2000 most popular Alexa sites. Our system managed to enable dynamic content of 70% of the most popular websites and block 100% of malware web-pages, all without any user intervention. Our approach can augment most browser security applications and enhance their effectiveness, thus encouraging more users to install these important applications.     

Interactive web environment for collaborative and extensible diagram based learning

Nowadays there is a growing need of ubiquity for learning, research and development tools, due to the portability and availability problems concerning traditional desktop applications. In this paper, we suggest an approach to avoid any further download or installation. The main goal is to offer a collaborative and extensible web environment which will cover a series of domains highly demanded by different kinds of working groups, in which it is crucial to have tools which facilitate the exchange of information and the collaboration among their members. The result of those interactions would be the development of one or several diagrams accessible from any geographical location, independently of the device employed. The environment can be adapted through personalized components, depending on the type of diagram that the user wants to interact with and the users can also create new elements or search and share components with other users of the community. By means of this environment, it will be possible to do research on the usability of collaborative tools for design diagrams, as well as research on the psychology of group interactions, assessing the results coming from the employment of known methodologies, techniques, paradigms or patterns, both at an individual and at a collaborative group level.     

Process of design and usability evaluation of a telepsychology web and virtual reality system for the elderly: Butler

Butler is a multi-application system based on Internet technology and virtual reality, designed to meet the needs of elderly users. Its objectives are to assist elderly populations in accessing technology and new forms of communication, replicating, as far as possible the way of lineal interaction that this population group had traditionally to interact with information in order to facilitate the first contacts with technology. Butler is equipped with e-mail, videoconferencing, blogging, access to the Internet through a well-known web search engine, image and sound gallery, new contacts searcher, and two virtual reality environments. In this paper we describe Butler's most relevant features taking into account the usability design process and the usability evaluation of the system, which, after pilot testing, have proven to be highly acceptable and satisfactory to users. We also present the results of evaluations pertaining to the iconography used in the program, the navigation and users' help design process, and the first functional prototype, all of which were designed and redesigned with the aid of web heuristics and guidelines for the web design for elderly users. Results suggest important features to be taken into account when designing and developing this sort of application for the elderly.     

A study on the acceptance of website interaction aids by older adults

The goal of the present work is to investigate the potential acceptance of a set of web interaction aids by older adults, in order to help them overcome difficulties associated with ageing and help them continue using the web as a source of information, communication and services. This paper presents a survey with older adults concerning their perceptions about a set of web interaction aids defined after a field observation study, a study with questionnaires and user tests of web applications. The survey involved 313 participants, of which about 44 % were older adults and elderly users. The results showed that the use of aids to support the interaction of older adults with the web promotes improvements in the interaction of older adults and younger users alike, which supports the argument for enhanced universal usability. Finally, it was possible to diagnose barriers that still remain and which aids had best acceptance by older adults.     

Towards a contingency approach with whitelist- and blacklist-based anti-phishing applications: what do usability tests indicate?

In web browsers, a variety of anti-phishing tools and technologies are available to assist users to identify phishing attempts and potentially harmful pages. Such anti-phishing tools and technologies provide Internet users with essential information, such as warnings of spoofed pages. To determine how well users are able to recognise and identify phishing web pages with anti-phishing tools, we designed and conducted usability tests for two types of phishing-detection applications: blacklist-based and whitelist-based anti-phishing toolbars. The research results mainly indicate no significant performance differences between the application types. We also observed that, in many web browsing cases, a significant amount of useful and practical information for users is absent, such as information explaining professional web page security certificates. Such certificates are crucial in ensuring user privacy and protection. We also found other deficiencies in web identities in web pages and web browsers that present challenges to the design of anti-phishing toolbars. These challenges will require more professional, illustrative, instructional, and reliable information for users to facilitate user verification of the authenticity of web pages and their content.     

A proposal toward the development of accessible e-learning content by human involvement

Most of the existing efforts for supporting the design, preparation, and deployment of accessible e-learning applications propose guidelines that primarily address technical accessibility issues. Little, if any, consideration is given to the real actors involved in the learning experience, such as didactical experts and disabled learners. Moreover, implementing artifacts addressed to the e-learning world requires a wide range of particular skills which are related not only to technical but also to didactical, pedagogical, usability, and accessibility aspects of the produced material. This paper argues that the know-how of a number of stakeholders should be blended into a joint design activity, and that it should be possible to determine the role of each participant in the successive phases of the development lifecycle of e-learning applications. The paper sketches the methodological guidelines of a design framework based on involving the users with disabilities, as well as pedagogical experts, in the development process. The novelty of this proposal mainly stems from being built up around the core of strategies and choices specifically bound to accessibility requirements. Characteristic elements of learner-centered design are then further integrated into processes and methodologies which are typical of participatory and contextual design approaches. Following such guidelines, it will be possible to gain a deeper understanding of the requirements and of the operational context of people needing accessible material, either as learners or educators. The underlying objective is to increase the potential to realize learning systems that better meet different user needs and that provide a more satisfying learning experience. Moreover, when people get involved in the development process, they gain a sense of ownership of the system and are therefore more likely to accept and “promote” it.     

Test usability guidelines and follow conventions. Useful recommendations from web developers

Usability measures the quality of use when a user interacts with a website. There are many guidelines and recommendations to improve the user experience on websites.The purpose of this study is to analyze the degree of compliance with the well-known recommendation “follow conventions.” The behavior of 20 IT engineers is analyzed to obtain application data for each of the associated guidelines. This test is carried out with web developers without training in web usability. The purpose of the analysis is to know if there are guidelines that are applied innate. As web developers are also users, it is thought that there may be some innate behavior when applying these guidelines.The purposes of the paper are: (1) Make a list of the most forgotten recommendations by web developers to think about the importance of offering specific training in this field. (2) Know the most important recommendations according to web developers. To get the study purposes the research is carried out as follows. User tests are carried out to evaluate the most forgotten and applied proposals by the developers. Examinations are also done to determine the level of compliance since the participants lack experience in web usability. Interviews with web developers are carried out to evaluate the recommendations considered necessary.It is expected to find results that help to understand if a web developer without training in usability can innately apply guidelines on conventions. And if this native application of the guidance it is useful. We want to show that there are guidelines that are used intuitively. And that there are guidelines that do not apply, and the reason for each situation.The results indicate that the guidelines considered essential and those most applied by web developers without training have something in common. All of them focus on design and seek to design and adjust to known standards that facilitate user navigation.     

Web应用系统的分布式负载测试框架研究

Web应用系统的性能包括服务响应时间、资源占用以及系统的稳定性等,Web应用系统在发布之前要进行功能测试、页面测试、性能测试等,其中负载测试是Web应用系统性能测试的一个重要方面。随着Web应用程序的使用越来越广泛,对其性能进行测试也变得越来越重要,而采用自动化的测试工具极大地方便了Web系统的测试。虽然目前存在多种自动化测试工具,但都还不能用于大负载测试(百万级虚拟用户访问量)。本文首先介绍了负载测试的性质及作用,然后以Apache的开源Web测试工具JMeter为基础,通过数据库技术对其分布式的Web负载测试框架进行优化,使得测试工具能真正达到百万级的负载测试。本文着重讨论了分布式的测试框架的实现问题。     

A survey of blind users on the usability of email applications

Blind users face many challenges and obstacles when using computers at home and in the workplace, including difficulties in accessing web sites and using corporate software. A detailed understanding of usability problems in common email applications can inform designs that will provide improved usability. To help understand the challenges faced, a web-based survey on email usage by blind screen reader users was conducted. This paper presents the results of the survey of 129 blind users, which reveal several important facets of email applications that can be improved for blind users. The paper also discusses the specific challenges that are faced by blind users when using desktop and web-based email software.     

用户体验设计——网页界面设计的重中之重

国内目前的网页设计,大多以视觉效果作为网页界面设计的首要考量,因而容易忽视网页设计的可用性。而网页界面设计,不仅应当给使用者带来视觉上的愉悦,更应当很好地帮助用户浏览网页内容,引导用户操作以完成网页服务。转变设计师以视觉效果为首要考量的固有设计习惯,将用户体验作为设计的重点,才是设计出具有良好互动性的网页的开端。     

Design and evaluation of an adaptive virtual guide for Web applications

Most applications accessible through the Web suffer from a noticeable lack of support for adapting to the different information needs that different users may have regarding a certain topic. However, completely automatic adaptive support can still be confusing for users who may not understand the reasons for the dynamic change in the behaviour of an application. In this paper, we present a possible solution to provide adaptive support that does not disorient the user. The solution integrates a virtual January 18, assistant that is able to provide adaptive support in an adaptable application. We discuss an example of the application of this approach involving the support of Web visits to virtual museums. We then present the results of an empirical usability test of such an application. Published online: 29 January 2002