Usability testing with disabled and non-disabled people

When conducting usability testing for a new product or service you can run the same usability testing projects with everyone. There may however be times when you need to adapt sessions and your process to suit different requirements.

The location where you conduct face-to-face testing must be accessible. Use a venue that includes ramp access for wheelchairs, lift access, accessible toilets, and space for guide dogs. The venue should be easy to find and near local transport. Also, be prepared to visit people in their own homes if travelling is not convenient or their hardware can’t be used outside the home.

Online usability testing

If you conduct usability testing online, use an accessible conferencing platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams. Your chosen platform should support screen readers, speech recognition and live captioning (if needed). Provide instructions in an accessible format ahead of time for people who may not be familiar using the platform. Allow plenty of time to help people get settled in and familiar with the set-up.

Check with participants ahead of time to see what they need to participate in sessions. If you’re inviting people who are Deaf or hard-of-hearing to a session, check if they need a sign language interpreter or captions.

Be flexible about how people provide feedback. The think-out-loud technique where people describe what they are doing when testing doesn’t suit everybody. People with speech and hearing disabilities may need to provide feedback via text chat or a sign language interpreter. 

Be prepared to adapt the length and number of tasks per session, and potentially make the session longer. People using speech recognition or eye-tracking software may take longer to complete tasks, so including two tasks, not four, may be more appropriate. 

Finally, think carefully about what tasks you ask people to do. If you plan to use rating scales as part of a session, keep them as simple as possible. Be prepared to rephrase the questions and offer people a different way to provide ratings either using their voice, via chat or using a thumbs up or thumbs down.

Other types of user research you can include disabled people in

You can include disabled people in just about any type of user research, including:

• surveys 
• focus groups 
• interviews 
• diary studies
• unmoderated usability testing 

As with usability testing, ensure the research study supports different access needs and uses accessible materials and tools. For example, if conducting an online survey, use an accessible survey tool. If conducting interviews offer people a choice between a phone call or a text chat. If conducting a diary study, ask people how they would like to submit feedback.

Tips

Some tips to help you run successful usability testing are:

• plan usability testing early on in a project so you have enough time to prepare for testing, run the sessions, analyse the findings and fix issues 
• ensure there's enough time after usability testing for product teams to fix issues and bugs if the product has a launch date
• invite members of the product team to observe usability testing so they can experience first-hand how people with disabilities use their products