Investigating the Accessibility and Usability of Job Application Web Sites for Blind Users

Jonathan Lazar, Abiodun Olalere, and Brian Wentz

Journal of Usability Studies, Volume 7, Issue 2, February 2012, pp. 68 - 87

Abstract

Most companies today place their job advertisements online and frequently require that applications for jobs be submitted online. Unfortunately, many online employment Web sites are inaccessible to users with disabilities, preventing these individuals from even applying for jobs online. Previous studies have used automated tools or expert reviews to evaluate the accessibility of online employment applications. This study involved 16 blind, screen-reader users, attempting to apply for jobs online. Two applications were submitted to each of 16 companies in the southeastern United States, for a total of 32 applications submitted. Many of the online employment application processes were inaccessible to blind users, and users repeatedly asked for assistance from the researchers when they faced accessibility problems. Only 9/32 (28.1%) of application attempts could be completed independently without any assistance. This report details the problems discovered during the usability testing and discusses the most common problems for blind users, as well as problems related to general usability. It also provides suggestions for improvement, including providing accessible feedback, unique and clear hyperlink text, properly structured layout, logical grouping of questions, clearly identified data format and required form fields, and conducting regular accessibility evaluations. It is essential that companies ensure that their online employment applications are accessible and usable for all individuals, including individuals with disabilities.

Practitioner’s Take Away

The following are key points for practitioners from this study:

• Usability testing of Web interfaces should include individuals with disabilities in order to verify that an interface can be used by all individuals. It is not enough to simply assume such usability based on automated accessibility evaluations. This is especially true in transactions or applications where multiple subtasks must be successfully completed to reach the task goal.
• When conducting usability tests with blind participants, we suggest that the length of the session should be estimated in advance so that participants can be informed in advance of the usability testing session.
• When conducting usability evaluations of interfaces with individuals who are blind, it is sometimes necessary to consider a modified approach to usability testing, in order to ensure that the usability of the entire interface is evaluated, rather than relying on a limited evaluation due to possible accessibility obstacles that are discovered during the usability testing.
• In addition to observing users during usability testing, encouraging users to think aloud may help to identify more issues during the testing exercise.
• Many of the core usability problems for people with disabilities are actually the same usability problems as for people without disabilities.

Article Contents

• Introduction
• Methods
• Results
• Interventions
• Common Problems for Blind Participants
• Action Items to Improve the Usability of Application Web Sites for Blind Participants
• Common Problems Related to General Usability
• Recommendations
• Conclusion
• References

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Investigating the Accessibility and Usability of Job Application Web Sites for Blind Users