Exploring the relationship between web accessibility and user experience

TitleExploring the relationship between web accessibility and user experience
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsAizpurua, Amaia, Harper, Simon, and Vigo, Markel
JournalInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies
Volume91
Pagination13-23
Keywordsassistive technology, blind, usability, web, Web accessibility
Abstract

Understanding the interplay between the user experience (UX) and Web accessibility is key to design Web sites that, beyond access, could provide a better UX for people with disabilities. In this paper we examine the relationship between UX attributes and Web accessibility. We measured accessibility in two ways: the perceived accessibility as reported by participants and accessibility in terms of conformance to guidelines. Findings uncover that perceived Web accessibility is significantly correlated with 27 of the 35 UX attributes analysed, suggesting these two qualities are closely related. The relationship between UX and conformance to WCAG 2.0 is more elusive: we only found significant correlations between the hedonic attributes original, innovative and exciting.

Notes

Besides measuring web accessibility with the established guidelines, this article also measured it by asking participants to indicate their perceived accessibility. It explored the relationship of user experience for people with disabilities and the accessibility measured by the above two dimensions. Their results indicated that web accessibility that was perceived by users was highly correlated with their user experience. However, web accessibility measured by whether the web conforms to the guidelines did not have such a strong relationship with user experience.

URLhttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581916000409
DOI10.1016/j.ijhcs.2016.03.008