End User Evaluations

Abstract

As new technologies emerge, and Web sites become increasingly sophisticated, ensuring they remain accessible to disabled and small screen users is a major challenge. Whilst guidelines and automated evaluation tools are useful for informing some aspects of Web site design, numerous studies have demonstrated that they provide no guarantee that the site is genuinely accessible. The only reliable way to evaluate the accessibility of a site is to study the intended users interacting with it. This chapter outlines the processes that can be used throughout the design life-cycle to ensure Web accessibility, describing their strengths and weaknesses, and discussing the practical and ethical considerations that they entail. The chapter also considers an important emerging trend in user evaluations: combining data from studies of `standard' Web use with data describing existing accessibility issues, to drive accessibility solutions forward.