title: Checking an integrated model of web accessibility and usability evaluation for disabled people.
abstract: A combined objective-oriented and subjective-oriented method for evaluating accessibility and usability of web pages for students with disability was tested. The objective-oriented approach is devoted to verifying the conformity of interfaces to standard rules stated by national and international organizations responsible for web technology standardization, such as W3C. Conversely, the subjective-oriented approach allows assessing how the final users interact with the artificial system, accessing levels of user satisfaction based on personal factors and environmental barriers. Five kinds of measurements were applied as objective-oriented and subjective-oriented tests. Objective-oriented evaluations were performed on the Help Desk web page for students with disability, included in the website of a large Italian state university. Subjective-oriented tests were administered to 19 students labeled as disabled on the basis of their own declaration at the University enrolment: 13 students were tested by means of the SUMI test and six students by means of the 'Cooperative evaluation'. Objective-oriented and subjective-oriented methods highlighted different and sometimes conflicting results. Both methods have pointed out much more consistency regarding levels of accessibility than of usability. Since usability is largely affected by individual differences in user's own (dis)abilities, subjective-oriented measures underscored the fact that blind students encountered much more web surfing difficulties.
authors.affiliation: ECONA, University of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, Italy. stefano.federici@uniroma1.it
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Federici
authors.forename: Andrea
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Micangeli
authors.forename: Irene
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ruspantini
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Borgianni
authors.forename: Fabrizio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Corradi
authors.forename: Emanuele
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pasqualotto
authors.forename: Marta
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Olivetti Belardinelli
mesh_terms: D003200:Computer User Training; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D018961:Educational Technology; D006801:Humans; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval; D020407:Internet / Q000295:instrumentation*; D014584:User-Computer Interface