Fearless aims to make the products we build usable by as many people as possible. Usable tech benefits everyone, whether it's end users or an organization's internal staff.
As part of our work with the Small Business Administration (SBA), Fearless partnered with the National Federation of the Blind to recruit non-sighted users for testing and design sessions with our team.
“Within Fearless’ design practice, we conduct user research to give our users more agency within our projects,” said Fearless Design Passion Coach Jordan Watts. “The Blind Users Innovating and Leading Design (BUILD) Program through the National Federation of the Blind allowed us to incorporate the feedback of non-sighted users into the design process.”
Testers in the NFB BUILD program evaluate various websites, products, or services for usability. These non-sighted users are essential when it comes to building websites that everyone can use.
Testing with sighted and non-sighted users is key to the design process. Initial designs are based on data and usability patterns but you don’t know how a person will interact with a site until they're using it.
“The study participants helped us to uncover two usability issues while using assistive technology,” said designer Ashley Phillip. “They had trouble during the registration process and found that the alternative text for some images was not descriptive enough.”
We were also able to improve the usability of SBA registration pages for all users. Originally the information for the registration was structured so that the password requirements for a field were placed under the text field. A screen reader would “read” the password field and prompt the user to create a password without reading the requirements below the field.
The designers switched the password requirements and password fields so the requirements would be read before users were prompted to input a password.
BUILD program participants brought their own assistive technology to testing sessions to ensure the process was a real-world simulation. Then we were able to observe how the technology was used and what issues were coming up.
“Non-sighted users rely on design and development practices that take into account how they use software and we don’t know if what we’ve built is usable until we actually observe people using it,” Jordan said. “This testing is essential to building usable software.”
“When I’m designing a user interface, I’m relying on my experience as a sighted person. There needs to be many perspectives,” Jordan said. “Oftentimes, design research discounts the experiences of people who require assistive technologies or other accommodations. By involving people with different abilities into our process, we come closer to building software that everyone can use.”