Consigliere evaluation: Evaluating complex interactive systems with users with disabilities

Abstract

Conducting accessibility evaluations with users with disabilities is an important part of developing accessible interactive systems. Conducting such evaluations of systems which require complex domain knowledge is often impossible, as disabled users do not exist or are very rare. This paper presents a user evaluation method to address this problem, consigliere evaluation. A consigliere evaluation has the disabled user as the main participant, but they are assisted by an advisor, or consigliere, who understands the complex domain; the consigliere is in turn, monitored by an accessibility expert, who acts as an enforcer. As in all user evaluations, the disabled participant undertakes a series of tasks. But in a consigliere evaluation, if the task requires some particular domain knowledge or skill, the role of the consigliere is to provide appropriate information. However, it is easy for the consigliere, who usually does not have knowledge of the accessibility domain, to provide information not specifically about the domain, but about how to do the task in general. So the role of the enforcer, who is an accessibility expert, is to ensure this does not happen, and also to provide assistance and explanation if accessibility issues arise that the disabled participant cannot solve. The paper illustrates the consigliere method with a case study, the evaluation of Skillsforge, an online system used by a number of universities to manage progress of postgraduate students. This system requires considerable domain knowledge of the terminology and progression requirements for these students. It is used by university administrative staff, academic staff who supervise postgraduate students or are involved in monitoring students and the students themselves. The case study illustrates how the consigliere evaluation method works and some of the things which need to be considered in conducting the evaluation appropriately.