Thursday, May 26, 2011

Mobile Accessibility


Mobile Accessibility
An open discussion
  • Accessibility Features
    • Mobile devices offer features to support users with various disabilities
      • Text zoom, screen zoom, cursor magnification and highlighting, on-screen keyboard, text-to-speech, audio, high visibility visual display modes
    • Apps can add specialized functionality
      • QuestVisual's Word Lens reads signs and translates them to a different language
        • http://questvisual.com/
      • Humanware's Oratio screen reader
        • http://www.humanware.com/en-usa/products/blindness/oratio_for_blackberry_smartphones/_details/id_131/oratio_for_blackberry_smartphones.html
  • The challenge of the touch interface
    • Smartphones and tablets generally are designed with "natural user interfaces"
      • By using touch gestures your can manipulate the user interface
    • What does touch interaction mean to people with various disabilities?
  • Current state of mobile accessibility
    • Summarized in an IBM presentation at CSUN 2011
      • http://www-03.ibm.com/able/news/downloads/IBM_Advancing_Mobile_Usability_for_Everyone_CSUN_2011.pdf
    • Smartphone market as of 8/2010 consists of 24% iPhone, 20% Android, 38% RIM (Blackberry)
    • iPhone has VoiceOver voice browser built in, other smartphones require a 3rd party app
    • iPhone supports ARIA, somewhat
    • iPhone and Android support HTML5, somewhat
    • Andoid offers tactile (haptic) feedback
  • Mobile Apps
    • Native apps
      • Run on the mobile device
      • Need to be written for specific device type using that devices toolset
      • Often draw content from information services elsewhere, such as RSS feeds
      • Native App Resources
        • Designing for Accessibility - Android Developers
          • http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/design/accessibility.html
        • iOS Accessibility
          • http://developer.apple.com/technologies/ios/accessibility.html
    • Web apps
      • Types of Web sites
        • Standard Web pages
          • Often have wide fixed widths, small fonts, low contrast, complex navigation
          • Difficult to use on a mobile; much zooming, scrolling, hitting the wrong links
        • Mobile friendly sites
          • Usually have flex designs, thorough use of relative size measures, large "tappable" links, simple navigation menus, simple hierarchical site structure
          • Could have a user interface for interaction (example: make a restaurant reservation), but takes some close attention to use it
        • Mobile optimized sites
          • Very simplified page design, flex design or auto-sizing to mobile screen size, very simple navigation, large tappable links and buttons.
          • If written with HTML5 can have many user interface features that are designed for use on mobiles, such as spinners, sliders, and forms that automatically evoke the appropriate keyboard
          • Could have functional interaction interfaces, to the extent care is taken to design for mobile devices
      • Can also draw content from Web services
      • May use HTML5
        • HTML5 is not standardized yet, variation among implementations
        • Many devices do not understand HTML5, but iPhones and recent Androids do, each in their own way
      • Different from mobile friendly Web pages, which are Web pages that display well and are reasonably usable on mobile browsers
        • Usually have flex designs, large tappable links, simple navigation
      • Web App Resources
        • Luke Wrobelwski
          • http://www.lukew.com/
        • Mobile Safari Web Application Tutorial
          • http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/AppleApplications/Conceptual/Dashcode_UserGuide/Contents/Resources/en.lproj/MakingaWebApp/MakingaWebApp.html
  • iOS Native App Accessibility Support
    • Apple things supporting accessibility is good business
      • Apple's Commitment to Accessibility
        • http://www.apple.com/accessibility/
    • Matt Legend Gemmell, an independent Apple OSX and iOS developer, says it is easy to add accessibility support to your app
      • http://mattgemmell.com/2010/12/19/accessibility-for-iphone-and-ipad-apps
      • Built-in VoiceOver support in UIKit gives you 80% accessibility support
      • You can up that to 95% by configuring Interface Builder
      • You ccan up it to 100% support by using some "incredibly trivial methods"
        • Doubt was expressed about Deep Geeks who say something is trivially simple
  • Android Accessibility Support
    • Android Developer site says Androids have an accessibility layer that helps users navigate their devices more easily
      • http://developer.android.com/guide/practices/design/accessibility.html
    • Apps are specifically available for people who are blind or have low vision
      • Mobile Accessibility for Android - a suite of programs
        • http://www.codefactory.es/en/products.asp?id=415

Thursday, May 05, 2011

Defense Against the Dark Arts

Rick Ells, UW-IT
AccessibleWeb@U Meeting, April 28, 2011
  • Approach of this study
  • Some Terminology
    • Terminology from Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
    • Goals – Strategic objectives
    • Principles – Design characteristics that support goals
    • Patterns – Solutions to common problems encountered when applying principles
  • Dark Art Spells and Incantations
    • Dark patterns are coding, design, and layout practices deliberately chosen to mislead the user into doing something other than what they came to do or giving up information they do not need to provide to achieve the purpose of their visit
  • So What Does This Have to Do With Accessibility?
    • A person working through assistive technology is even more vulnerable to being misled by dark patterns.
    • It is easy to inadvertantly engage in dark patterns, even if you are a white knight. Being aware of dark patterns can help you avoid them in your own work.
    • If you find yourself feeling indignant as you see these examples, think how you would feel if you had a disability that made it even more difficult to realize you were being manipulated or deceived.
  • Let Me Out!
    • Packaged fees, but no simple way to opt-out of specific fees in the package ("I do not want your service plan!")
    • Sign-up online, but canceling requires snail mail to corporate headquarters
    • Automatically signing you up for multiple email lists, while hiding how to select the ones you want or deselect the ones you do not want
  • Promises, Promises
    • You are invited to contribute your articles to the site for all to see, but does not mention that fees will be charged to people trying to see them.
    • Promising free access to information, but only giving it to people who register.
    • Saying the information you seek has been found, now please pay upfront to see it. So you pay and the information is not what you asked for.
  • Role Swapping
    • Placing one type of question where another typically is located
    • On software download pages, have other "Download" boxes for other software, without clear labelling to distinguish them from the download box of the product
    • Placing “Buy enhanced support plan” checkbox where “Send me marketing email” checkbox is usually located (down by submit button)
  • Unitless Offers
    • Recurring fee looks like a single fee
    • Displayed rate is only for first month, subsequent monthly rate is not shown
    • Ambiguous units
    • What is “Weekend rate”? Is that the rate for the whole weekend or for each day in the weekend?
  • Forced Continuity
    • Free trial silently rolls over into a periodic charge
    • Turning off the periodic charge requires going to some other site or even contacting the company by other means than the Web
  • Intuition Flipping
    • Reverse intuitive questions — “Check if you do not want extra insurance”
    • Opt flipping — Counter intuitive opt-in/opt-out questions — “Do you not want to receive our marketing messages”
  • Comparison Squelching
    • Price revealed only on the very last screen, perhaps after you have enter identification and credit card information
    • Only show rates without other fees that will be added
    • Only state prices in the form of “As low as…”
  • Whispered Exceptions
    • Exceptions and other qualifications of an offer are at the bottom of the page in low contrast text
    • Such text may be elsewhere in the site in an un-intuitive location, such as in the Statement of Terms and Conditions
  • Other Dark Art Power Practices
    • Discontinuities in decision trees so that choices important to the user are not encountered in the course of the interaction
    • Needed information not available in context
    • Misleading high visibility offers, hidden or low visibility qualifications on the offers
    • Massive default opt-ins
    • Hidden paywalls (you are in far enough that you do not want to quit, so you pay)
    • Burying choices that are disadvantageous to the site owner — out of sight, out of mind
  • White Art Practices
    • The WCAG 2.0 Four — Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust
    • Empower — Let user know choices up-front so they can make informed choices
    • Decision Points — Present decision options clearly as a set
    • User Perspective — Support user expectations and habits
  • When Dark Patterns Are Used By Good Guys
    • The vendor may be aware that customers base their choices on incorrect understandings of the products. For example, many computer vendors do not put the CPU speed up front because now that many computers have multi-core processors, the CPU speed is not a good indicator of responsiveness of applications running on the computer.
    • The buying style of the vendor's customers may be less based on price and more based on the features of the product.
  • Defending Against the Dark Arts
    • WCAG and 508 as your technology foundation
    • Build the user interaction based on user expectations and perceptions
    • Keep key choices and information in-path and in-view
    • Give the user control of what is theirs
    • Simplicity, clarity, integrity
    • Design your site to support upfront negotiation of options, a square deal making it clear what has been chosen and its costs, and conclude with a handshake clarifying your commitments to your customer