LessFuss Design

Last week the WebAIM team published the results of their latest Screen Reader User Survey (a follow up to the last one carried out at the end of 2008). As with the first WebAIM survey , the results confirm that many of the things we have assumed are problematic for screen reader users (e.g. Flash – or rather how developers implement Flash – is a massive pain in the backside) are true. They also reinforce that just as there’s no typical web browser user, there’s also no typical screen reader user.

A few of the headline results

The WebAIM website has a summary of the survey results along with the detailed analysis , but here’s a few of the things that caught my eye:

1. ’53% of respondents with disabilities use a mobile device for web browsing’ (compare that with 12% using a mobile phone in February 2009 (although that 12% figure doesn’t include other types of mobile devices, just phones)).
2. ’83.6% of respondents updated their primary screen reader within the last year’ – slightly higher than in the first survey, and suggesting that screen reader users are much quicker to upgrade to the latest software version than users of web browsers are.
3. ‘The majority of respondents found blogs, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and YouTube to be accessible and most reported LinkedIn as being inaccessible’ – really? I wonder how many of the respondents were using Dennis Lembree’s Accessible Twitter rather than the original…
4. ’62.6% say it is somewhat unlikely or very unlikely for Flash content to be accessible to them’ – more on that in a moment.
5. ‘Headings are the primary mechanism (50.8% of respondents) for finding information within a page’ – and yet the number of pages I come across with no headings (or headings used incorrectly) outweighs those that use them properly.

No such thing as a ‘typical screen reader user’

As with the first survey earlier in the year, you can pick up on common themes in screen reader useage, but you can’t define a screen reader user. As Patrick Lauke said of the last survey:

Perhaps the most significant conclusion we can make from these survey results is that there is no typical screen reader user.Patrick Lauke – webstandards.org

This is probably what a lot of web developers and designers wouldn’t want to hear. The task of achieving cross-browser compatibility and consistency across multiple devices (usually the primary concerns), is headache enough, so accessibility testing (which let’s face it, whether we like it or not, often comes at the end of a project) would be a whole lot easier if you knew what the parameters were and you could just test for one set of circumstances.

Let’s also not forget that screen reader users – the blind and partially sighted – aren’t the only ones we should be looking out for when building websites. While I’m not aware of a study with the profile of webAIM’s screen reader survey that looks at the habits and preferences of those (for example) with autism or motor disabilities (althought the survey does include some findings on keyboard navigation), the specific needs of these groups should also be considered when building & testing sites.

In other words, giving it a quick run through JAWS as a final test before you put a site live clearly just isn’t going to cut it…

Screen reader users and Flash

The one area where I think the webAIM survey lacks a bit on detail is Flash content. To say that ’62.6% say it is somewhat unlikely or very unlikely for Flash content to be accessible to them’ surely confirms what many web developers and designers suspect is the case, it doesn’t really help us understand how Flash is problematic or what we could be doing to make Flash content better.

As Jared Smith points out in the detailed results, there’s no baseline for comparison (i.e. no way of ascertaining whether a page of content in Flash is more or less accessible than the same content not provided in Flash).

The other issue is that screen reader users are asked the ‘likelihood’ of them having trouble with Flash content, so they’ll be answering based on their experiences of Flash content they’ve come across – which of course will be different for each respondent. And then, what you’re getting is an opinion of Flash based on a specific encounter with a page or site using it, and since it’s more likely that you’ll come across implementations of Flash on the Web that don’t make use of the various accessibility features than those that do, I suspect the results will be slightly skewed in the direction of ‘Flash is inaccessible’.

In light of this, what I’d like to see is a more controlled test of some kind. As part of the survey (or optional ‘spin off’ from it), maybe a page of content could be provided in three different ways – a non-Flash version, a version made in Flash but without any accessibility features added, and a version made as accessible as is possible – for respondents to use and report back on.

Since the survey is already finding out whether screen reader users are advanced, intermediate or beginners, it would also be a good chance to find out what elements of Flash interactivity are the bugbears for users at all levels. My suspicion is that no matter what your screen reader proficiency level, Flash content that doesn’t have the accessibility features will be hard work to use.

That aside, the webAIM survey continues to be an invaluable resource for web designers and developers and interesting reading for anyone, whether you’re in web publishing or not. So if you haven’t had a look already, make your way to the webAIM website .