Little is known about cognitive web accessibility. This presentation gives insight into a cognitive web accessibility research study and gives recommendations and ideas in approaching web accessibility for users with cognitive and learning disabilities.

1. Insights into Cognitive
Web Accessibility
Jared Smith
http://webaim.org

2. Cognitive and learning disabilities are complex

3. Principles
• Memory
• Problem-solving
• Attention
• Reading, linguistic, and verbal comprehension
• Math comprehension
• Visual comprehension

4. Cognitive disability is not a binary state

5. Cognitive Web Accessibility
Principles and techniques that ensure content is
as widely available as possible to people with
cognitive and learning disabilities

6. Very Difficult! Why?
Previous research is sparse and disparate
It’s a very diverse population
Recommendations for one disability may
disadvantage another
Cognitive and learning disabilities have been
largely unaddressed in guidelines

7. WebAIM’s Project
• Create an automated web accessibility
evaluation tool, similar to WAVE, for cognitive
accessibility.
• Focus on K-12 students
• Provide insight into cognitive and learning
disability and web accessibility

8. Our Goal
• Cognitive accessibility principles that are...
• broadly applicable
• of interest and use to web developers
• machine testable

9. Our Process
• Literature review
• Broadly applicable
• Developer survey
• Of interest to web developers
• Analysis
• Machine testable
• User testing
• Verify applicability and relevance

10. Elements Analyzed
• Font size
• Headings
• Images
• Line length
• Lists
• Multimedia
• Reading level
• Search
• Serif vs. sans-serif text

11. User Testing
• Matched Pairs
• Tried to isolate the element being
analyzed
• Measured efficiency, effectiveness, and
satisfaction/ease
• 8 grade 6-12 students with cognitive or
learning disabilities

12. Small font size
vs
slightly above average font size
Larger text was more efficient, effective, and
satisfying in nearly all cases

13. Images paired with text content
vs.
text content alone

14. Images paired with text content
vs. text content alone
7 out of 8 were more efficient and more
satisfied with images

15. Line Length
Short (~25 characters)
vs.
average (~75 characters)
vs.
long (~120 characters)
All subjects took longer on the long line length
pages. Little difference between short and
average.

16. Line Length
Students perceived the long line length page as
being shorter than the others and reported it as
being easiest...
...but it actually took them much longer to read it.

17. Multimedia
Seven of the eight students were more efficient
and also expressed more user satisfaction from
the page with the video instructions than the one
with written instructions.

18. Less conclusive
• Headings
• Students were slightly more efficient
without headings. Though the short subject
matter likely affected this.
• Students sometimes did not read headings
• Lists
• Student preferred the page with lists, but
were no more efficient with them.

19. Less conclusive
• Reading level
• No marked difference (though a very short
sample)
• Search
• Spelling proved difficult.
• They took time to choose “the one” correct
search result (probably a factor of the testing)
• Serif vs. Sans-serif
• No marked difference
• Many other studies show no difference in WEB
readability or comprehension, but significant
differences in satisfaction.

20. Initial Findings and Observations
Perceived difficulty may have a
bigger impact than actual difficulty

21. Perceived difficulty
Page with larger text appeared shorter
(though it wasn’t) and was thus
perceived as easier.
Was the page more efficient because of
large text or because it was perceived as
easier???

22. Perceived difficulty
Make your page LOOK easy

23. Initial Findings and Observations
Confirmation for confidence

24. Confirmation for confidence
Students spent a lot of time finding
THE ONE correct answer.
Search results were overwhelming.

25. Confirmation for confidence
It wasn't a matter of finding the
correct answer, it was a matter of
choosing the correct answer.
Make your pages simple and
intuitive. Provide error recovery
mechanisms.

26. Initial Findings and Observations
Distractions

27. Distractions
Keep visual aids clean,
simple, and complementary
to the content

28. Initial Findings and Observations
Self-paced

29. Self-paced
Multimedia introduces a specific timing
element. Can users keep up?
A transcript, a prominent pause feature,
and an ability to quickly rewind or replay
the video allow users to use multimedia
at their own pace.

30. Initial Findings and Observations
Consistency and organization

31. Consistency and organization
While organizational
elements (headings,
lists, etc.) can help
accessibility, they should
be clearly differentiable
from other elements.

32. Consistency and organization

33. Consistency and organization
The “Science of Hockey” section was nearly
invisible to some students. Some never found it
after minutes of reading the page.
It was a parallel item to the other sports, but
was not presented consistently.

34. Much more work needs to be
done in this area

35. Questions and Discussion
?

36. Thank You!
Jared Smith
http://webaim.org
twitter: @jared_w_smith