Digital Equity 2

Understanding the barriers that assistive technology users face when accessing digital services

While volunteering with IncluCity Calgary I participated in my third project, working with a team to conduct usability testing and user research. IncluCity Calgary is a nonprofit with a mission of improving the impact of solutions, services, and processes for clients by engaging with diverse Calgarians through inclusive usability testing.

For this project, IncluCity Calgary and the City of Calgary’s Web and Digital team carried on work from the previous pilot project, focusing on a specific subpopulation group this time around.

Roles

Co-coordinator

Timeline

May 2024 - November 2024

Tools

Zoom
Google Calendar
Notion

Team

9 members

PROBLEM

People with disabilities encounter multiple barriers when accessing digital services online

In our previous digital equity pilot project, we had more difficulty recruiting people with disabilities for usability testing compared to that of other subpopulation groups. Similarly, some equity challenges from our previous findings were specific to the unique challenges related to assistive technologies, so we wanted to dive deeper into the obstacles that they face.

SOLUTION

We conducted usability testing sessions with 11 users with varying disabilities and assistive technology usage

The subpopulation group of interest for this project was people with disabilities that relied on assistive technology to access digital services. The difference in the degree of impairment and preferred assistive technology enabled us to examine and understand the usability issues that might not be present elsewhere. Through user testing with the specific group, we collected qualitative data to analyze and find usability issues within the digital services with respect to the different assistive technologies used.

My contributions

As the project co-coordinator, I worked closely with researchers from the City and other coordinators to manage volunteer involvement throughout testing. I recruited participants by reaching out and screening eligible people from the IncluCity Calgary tester pool and organizing the testing schedule. Lastly, I assisted City researchers through coordinating usability testing sessions and following up with participants.

Research goals

The City of Calgary maintained the same research goals from the previous pilot project:

Identify usability issues within various digital services pertaining to subpopulation groups
Demonstrate the effectiveness and value of user testing with equity-deserving groups
Provide a case study to help operationalize and advocate for user testing within digital service development

Process

To recruit participants, I first went through the IncluCity testing pool data to find people that were eligible and reached out to them to inquire about their availability and confirm that they indeed met the criteria for the project. Subsequently, I directed eligible participants to book a testing session within a 3-week window that was agreed upon with the City of Calgary researchers.

The two different types of impairments that we recruited for are as follows:

People with visual impairment (low vision, legally blind)
People with motor impairment

The main focus was to find participants that use screen readers, but other assistive technology and tools that were used by participants included the magnification tool and a manual text-to-speech tool. The City of Calgary team reviewed the recordings after each session, so IncluCity Calgary volunteers were not involved with taking notes and conducting qualitative analysis.

Outcome

Upon the conclusion of the usability testing from the IncluCity volunteer team, the City of Calgary’s UX research team analyzed their testing notes and insights in order to create a report outlining the findings, with the intention of sharing the report with the product teams responsible for the relevant digital services from testing. As the report has not been made available to the public yet, I am not authorized to talk about the specific results and findings from the report.

Final thoughts

This project enabled me to build upon my leadership skills from the previous pilot project, as I incorporated my past learnings with new responsibilities in overseeing and organizing all steps of the project.

The most notable addition to my duties was managing the tester recruitment process; the external-facing aspect introduced variables from response time to tester availability, requiring me to factor in those uncertainties with respect to our timeline. My enlarged scope of management also meant I had to communicate timely updates to ensure that all stakeholders were on the same page, from other coordinators and IncluCity Calgary volunteers to the City of Calgary research team.