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Q: I sometimes think that visual layouts contain decorative decisions that are not really helpful for non-visual users. So I tend to think that function is more important than form for these users. At the same time I think there is no harm in including these types of elements for visual users. What is the accessibility take on that? A: Both form and function matter. We should be designing for delight for everyone and thinking about all needs, while avoiding gratuitously “throwing” things around. While sighted users may see decorative elements and interact with functional visual elements, someone with low vision might use visual cues to help navigate and keep track of things. Someone with a cognitive disability may rely heavily on visual elements as opposed to copy. Here’s an example of how to provide for more engagement for users with sight impairment: When designing a page layout that has many container-type elements, using skip-link tags for each main container might allow users with screen readers to tab through those containers and orient to the content on the page the way a sighted user would. Another example: When there are illustrations or diagrams on a page, use alt-tag descriptions that help users better understand what’s on the page: Is the image a black and white cartoon? Does it have a serious or comical tone? If there is a diagram, are there colors? Is it a bar chart or a graph? Providing more detail can help users with visual disabilities get a better understanding of not just what’s on the page, but how information was meant to be conveyed. |
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Q: To what degree is plain language relevant to the work of elections administration and voting? A: It’s critical. Here is how Plain Language.gov addresses it right on their homepage: “Plain language makes it easier for the public to read, understand, and use government communications.” It’s very tied up in the definitions of accessibility and usability: people who need the information can find it, understand it, and use it. A lot of the work being done is to take policy and turn it into a tangible form. For example, in a state where U.S. citizens have to request a ballot, there is likely an online form to fill out, which is probably dictated by some laws or procedural policies. There might be a requirement on the form for the user that says “You must supply your current residence address.” “Residence address” is kind of a hard concept, so adding “Where do you live?” may help people who don’t relate to the legal phrasing of the words. |
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Q: In usability we have the Nielson 10 heuristics to help guide usability evaluation and design. Is there an analogous set of heuristics that apply to accessibility? A: The Nielsen heuristics can apply to accessibility. You can ask each question and say “with limited vision,” “with limited use of the hands,” etc. You can add all the functional characteristics. The WCAG accessibility guidelines are built around a set of heuristics that everything should be perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. We actually built that into the usability chapters of the Voluntary Voting System Guidelines (VVSG), in part because we wanted to connect the voting system guidelines to general usability laws. You can also think about how to translate the kinds of things that accessibility guidelines ask you for into language that will make sense in a UX design experience. For example, think about navigation. People need to find where they are going and understand where they are. A whole lot of the things you do to make navigation accessible are really about helping users understand what the navigation controls will do, where they will take the user, and how the user knows that they’ve gotten where they meant to go. |
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Q: If a state wants to improve their voting to be more accessible, where would they start? And what can citizens do to engage in the process? A: A lot of things that states should do to make their voting more accessible are already required by law. Elections are run at the county and city level. Communication with your local election office is a great way to engage. If you find something on your state’s website that isn't accessible, just let your election office know it’s a problem. Many complaints about accessibility in voting are about the accessibility of the polling place itself. This may be a challenge in communities where it is hard to find a building suitable for a polling place that is also accessible. If you know of a building that might work as an accessible polling place, you might let your election office know. They may not know about that space. To get more involved, be a poll worker. You get to be part of the front lines of helping other people in your community work, and you learn a lot about how elections run, which helps you be a more informed reporter of challenges. Some counties have advisory groups, formal or informal, where they invite people in to be their eyes and ears in the community. Sign up for one of them. In general, election officials want to make sure that everyone gets to vote. And when they don't, it's often because they don't know how to solve a problem. So if you're a clever problem solver like many designers are, they might be interested in hearing from you. |
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Q: Aside from satisfaction ratings and task completion success, are there any other “success metrics” you might use to determine to what extent a design is working well (or not) for various people with disabilities? A: First, if you don’t have a way for people to tell you of a problem, you'll never hear about it, so you might include a very gentle way to ask what people’s experience was. You’re going to hear most often about the very good and very bad, so you’ll want to ask the most relevant questions about your site or function. Second, look at the site analytics for paths through the site. Are people wandering wildly through it? Are they cycling back and forth repeatedly? Analytics may help you broadly see the kinds of things you might see when doing usability tests. If you have a way to isolate specific user paths, you might pull a few of those every month and look at them for more insight. Finally, Federal agency sites sometimes have pop-ups that ask questions. Those kinds of systems are really great, especially if agencies are sharing questions, because you may be able to compare things across your agencies the way the Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS) allows. You can start with specific questions: What brought you to our site today? Did you find what you're looking for? If not, how did you handle that? |
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Q: What would you say when folks note that some accessible approaches conflict with each other for different needs? Can there actually be a “universal” design? A: I think there can be universal design, but it takes careful thought into allowing people to adjust the interface or the interaction easily. That means not having to go in and change 100 settings; instead you can think about some of the big clusters of features that go together when you provide customized settings. We actually have to do that in voting because nobody is on their personal machine. So there are very few settings that you can change. I love Los Angeles’s approach. Their goal was to reduce the number of times someone would have to make an adjustment. They actually made the text for voters much bigger than is required because they discovered that people were bumping it up to that size. They looked for the place where it was big enough for more people to read easily, especially thinking about the vast number of people whose eyesight is starting to diminish with age. Will we ever get to a place where no one’s been left out? Probably not, in mathematical terms. But we can make that need vanishingly small, and we can continue to work on making it vanishingly small version after version. |
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At the May 2024 monthly call, guest speaker Whitney Quesenbery discussed her work to create a more accessible voting process.
Note: These monthly call Q&A recap posts are still a new feature here. We’re still experimenting with what works best for these in the interest of transparency, but also how well they help you. Let us know if you find them useful — or if you have a better idea. Also, if you don’t see your question about the May call answered, feel free to discuss further here. Things may have changed since the call, and in those cases we’ve indicated updates with a date.
Questions from the May 2024 monthly call
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