To recap from last week’s post, according to WebAIM‘s WCAG 2 Checklist (Where WCAG refers to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, which are “…the most widely-accepted set of recommendations, and were developed over several years of collaborative involvement by a panel of experts and interested individuals,” according to WebAIM), the four main guiding principles of accessibility in WCAG 2.0 are:
- Perceivability
- Operability
- Understandability
- Robustness
What is Operability?
In the context of web accessibility, operability refers to the means with which users are physically able to access web content. WebAIM breaks operability into four components, including: input methods, interaction methods, time-driven user control, and error recovery.
Input method refers to adaptive technology which assists users which cannot access web content via mouse or standard keyboard, such as a mouth stick, or a trackball mouse to manipulate the keyboard (See also the motor disabilities article.). Keyboards are actually easier for the blind to manipulate, since it cuts across disability types and technologies – making it one of the most important principles of Web accessibility. For this reason, “Most of the alternative and adaptive devices used by people with disabilities emulate the keyboard in terms of functionality.” As a result, “Content that is accessible to the keyboard is operable by the devices that emulate keyboard functionality, no matter how radically different those devices are in appearance from standard keyboards.”
Interaction methods refer to web elements that assist users to “…find, navigate through, and interact with web content.” Search features, site indexes, and site maps are example web elements which help users access content within a website more efficiently than they would otherwise (See also the site searches, site indexes, and site maps article.).
Time-driven user control refers to allowing for users to have an unlimited amount of time to complete tasks on the web, whenever appropriate to do so. For example, “Users should also be able to manipulate and control media players, animations, and any other kind of time-dependent content. Media players should include ways of pausing, rewinding, and fast-forwarding content. Users should be able to stop animations, especially if they flicker or strobe, because this puts some users at risk for experiencing seizures.“
Error recovery refers to web developers programming second chances into a site’s web functionality, to allow users to recover from their mistakes by including interactive web design features such as: confirmation screens, error alerts, and warnings. Providing a few words of instruction are also a helpful design feature for when interaction is complicated or when content may be difficult to find, which can often help reduce the number of errors committed by users.
Why does it matter?
To illustrate why designing interfaces with optimal operability in mind matters, lets take a look at what happened with CitiBank, which recently “…just got a $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design,” when it failed to do so. According to the article which I came across, “Citibank was acting as an agent for Revlon, which owed hundreds of millions of dollars to various creditors. On August 11 of last year, Citibank was supposed to send out interest payments totaling $7.8 million to these creditors. However, because of a “…confusing interface of financial software called Flexcube,” the bank accidentally payed back the principal on the entire loan – which amounted close to $900 million (Some of the creditors sent the money back, resulting in the $500 million total loan amount which was paid out prematurely) — most of which wasn’t due until 2023, and not the $7.8 million it was trying to send. The person who entered the transaction was presented a Flexcube screen that looked like this:
As the article states, “The subcontractor [who made the transaction] thought that checking the “principal” checkbox and entering the number of a Citibank wash account would ensure that the principal payment would stay at Citibank. He was wrong. To prevent payment of the principal, the subcontractor actually needed to set the “front” and “fund” fields to the wash account as well as ‘principal,'” which didn’t happen. This crisis could have been avoided had the Flexcube app interface been programmed with a couple of simple error recovery design elements, such as a: confirmation screen, error and/or warning alert, and a pop-up window which explained what each selection meant, etc..
Potential Connected Experience Benefits
Outside of averting a potential financial crisis, there are several other connected experience benefits which organizations can provide their end-users with, by investing in having their interfaces designed with optimal operability in mind, including:
- Efficient access to content
- Improved resource utilization
- Increased interaction with peers
- Reduced support tickets created
- Reduced shopping cart abandonment
- Reduced site abandonment
- Increased customer satisfaction
In the weeks to follow, I will continue to focus on the set of guiding principles of accessibility which have yet to be discussed in greater detail, covering Understandability next week, then Robustness the following week, in an effort to: further our familiarity with how to put people at the center of the web design process, and better understand the potential customer experience benefits for each one through some example applications.
Brendan Hukill 