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|title=Study of conditions of use of E-services accessible to visually disabled persons
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-285/paper05.pdf
|volume=Vol-285
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/interact/Bobillier-ChaumonS07
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==Study of conditions of use of E-services accessible to visually disabled persons==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-285/paper05.pdf
DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
Study of conditions of use of E-services accessible to
visually disabled persons
BOBILLIER CHAUMON M.E SANDOZ-GUERMOND F.
Laboratoire GRePS Laboratoire LIESP
Instit de Psychologie, Université Lyon 2 INSA de Lyon
69676 BRON Cedex (F) 69621Villeurbanne Cedex (F)
marc-eric.bobillier-chaumon@univ-lyon2.fr francoise.sandoz-guermond@insa-lyon.fr
ABSTRACT type of social stigmatism because of their lack of
The aim of this paper is to determine the technological accessibility. The DP must first ask for
expectations that French-speaking disabled help to use the system and perform the act.
persons have for electronic administrative sites (utility).
At the same time, it is a matter of identifying the The objective of our communication is to determine the
difficulties of use that the manipulation of these E- real contributions of accessible E-services for visually
services poses concretely for blind people (usability) disabled persons as well as evaluate the repercussions of
and of evaluating the psychosocial impacts on the way the lack of digital accessibility to these E-services on
of life of these people with specific needs. We show this population4. This is based on the hypothesis that
that the lack of numerical accessibility is likely to inaccessible technologies will only confirm the
accentuate the social exclusion of which these people inequalities of access to information and services
are victim by establishing a numerical glass ceiling. between able-bodied persons and disabled persons, and
could even reinforce and intensify them.
ACM Classification Keywords In this perspective, we studied the conditions of use of
Accessibility, Visually disabled persons, E- accessible electronic services.
Government.
In this perspective, we propose an original approach to
INTRODUCTION & CONTEXT study the conditions of use of electronic services
The development of new technologies may prove to be accessible to disabled persons. The methodological
a tremendous springboard for the integration of disabled approach is indeed both:
persons (DP) provided that these environments are - Multidimensional: by diagnosing their utility
accessible, usable, and useful; in other words that they (adaptation to user expectations), usability (ease of
take into consideration the various characteristics of the use), accessibility (respect of standards and
activity and the needs and particularities (cognitive, principles), and acceptability (meaning and stakes
perceptive, or motive) related to the disability of the attributed to the technologies).
users (7, 9).
- And comparative: since carried out on two user
This question is even more pertinent in the context of samples (able-bodied and visually impaired) with
quasi-generalized media coverage of the service various levels of E-service experience (novice to
relationship (E-administration, E-banking, E-commerce, expert).
etc.). Various studies worldwide have shown the very
weak respect of accessibility criteria despite the METHODS
numerous standards (section 508 in the USA, the law Our approach draws on three complementary studies:
concerning digital accessibility of administrative
services in France, etc.) or labels (Blindsurfeur in • The utility of the sites was studied using an online
Belgium, See it Right in England, Accessiweb in France, questionnaire on 439 DP with motive, perceptive, and
etc.) required during the conception of these online cognitive disabilities in order to determine what the
services [5]: more than 75% of the assessed sites E-services bring to the DP and what the DP expect
present level 1 WAI guideline accessibility flaws [9], from them.
meaning that accessibility to these sites is impossible • The usability and accessibility of the sites was
for DP [2, 3, 4].
This is becoming a serious problem insomuch as
accessibility seems to be one of the social and political
levers playing a role in the amelioration of the quality of
life of people with disabilities [6, 8, 10]. Indeed, if on 4
These results are extracted from research on the digital
the one hand, accessible Internet sites can allow DP accessibility of electronic administration (ADELA
greater autonomy by giving them the possibility to project) financed by the Minister of Research and New
complete various activities by themselves; on the other Technology (Ministère Délégué à la Recherche et aux
hand, these technologies are also the source of a new Nouvelles Technologies) (Nov. 2004 to Dec. 2005).
15
evaluated5 with user tests based on 3 scenarios informational causes (services not complying with the
(specified below) and two populations: 10 visually users’ needs, unawareness of services offered) and
disabled participants (VDP) and 10 sighted personal reasons (preference for classic modes of
participants. The participants had comparable access, fear of social isolation, entry errors, etc.). DP
sociobiographical characteristics (age, sex, education, support (sensitisation, education, etc.) in the acquisition
etc.), only the mastery of the Internet varied equally of E-services would certainly help breakdown these
in each group (5 novices and 5 experts). For this barriers at least in part. Finally, even though 46% were
confrontation, we wanted to know if the problems opposed to transforming classic services into E-
encountered by the blind were the same as those of services, and this despite the benefits indicated above,
the sighted (general problems of usability), or if the this position should not be seen as a rejection of
problems were amplified by a choice of technology innovation, but rather as concern and worry, shared by
incompatible with their perceptive limits (problems of 60% of participants that their specific needs and profiles
accessibility). The data collection tools used were would not be sufficiently taken into account in the
simultaneous verbalisation, observations and a conception of these technologies.
satisfaction questionnaire (adapted from the Wammi
grid6). The indicators measured were the efficiency Evaluation of the usability and accessibility
(time, frequency and nature of errors, omissions, Three scenarios were used for these tests: information
number of selections/strategies to perform a retrieval from the ANPE (French national employment
scenario), satisfaction (score out of 5 on the Wammi agency) site (Scenario 1: informational), participation in
scale) and efficacy (pass/fail test). a public forum (Scenario 2: interactive) and filling out
an online form on the Nancy les Vandoeuvre municipal
• The acceptability of E-services was analysed using
site (Scenario 3: transactional).
semi-directive interviews of 8 blind participants. The
objective was to determine to what extent these Efficiency
services could transform the practices, contacts, and Efficacy Satisfac- Mean Mean Mean number
status of the blind. These interviews were recorded (% of success in tion explora-tionnumber of of selections
the scenario) (mean scoretime (sec) strategies per scenario
and entirely transcribed. A thematic content analysis / 5) deployed
was performed on this corpus.
Sighted Blind S B S B S B S B
(S) (B)
MAIN RESULTS
Scen. 1 100% 60% 4.17 3.42 105 814 1.38 3.40 4.38 8.20
Study of utility of the sites Scen. 2 62.5% 20% 2.84 2.86 230 1134 2.29 3.70 6.43 7.30
Of the 439 DP who answered the online questionnaire,
Scen. 3 66 % 10% 2.84 2.86 334 1176 3.00 3.44 10.83 8.22
52% indicated having help with their classic
administrative processes. This is due to difficulties in Table 1: Main results of user tests
mobility (33.5%) physical accessibility to the building
or administrative hours (30.5%), the complexity of From these analyses (Cf. Table 1), large divergences
forms (23%), or difficult contact with agents (feelings between the two populations emerge concerning the
of “being different”) (13%). E-administration thus usability of E-services, as would be expected. The
seems like an alternative solution that, incidentally, efficacy and efficiency are thus lower for the blind
52.4% of participants declared to have already used and participants than for the sighted participants (with the
32.4% would like to use. These users benefited from performances, notably the time, that are up to seven
them. The role of these E-services as a facilitating tool times superior to those of the sighted). However, the
(finding information, avoiding going out to fill out satisfaction is globally the same for both groups. We
forms, etc.) is thus confirmed by 90%. The fact that even note a surprising result concerning scenario 3
these electronic services allow the DP to avoid where the efficiency (for the strategy and selection) is
requesting someone’s help to perform tasks that are almost advantageous for the blind participants. This
often intimate and personal and that they favour the piece of data could be explained by a learning effect
social integration of the DP by providing the same since the users performed scenarios 2 and 3 on the same
access as an able-bodied person is underlined by, site. So, it is the blind expert participants who exploited
respectively, 90% and 96% of participants. this learning the best, undoubtedly being used to taking
advantage of each action to compensate for their
For the 40% who refuse to use E-services, this position disability.
is principally due to technical and ergonomic causes
(lack of reliability and accessibility of environments, We note moreover that the usage difficulties penalize
data protection, delay of data processing, etc.) mainly the blind the least habituated. The novice blind
users seem, in fact, extremely resourceless in dealing
with the problem of accessibility of the interface
5
Ergonomic inspections of accessibility were also whereas the expert blind users, from their practice and
performed during the research but won’t be presented their experience, solicit mental models to compensate
here due to lack of room. for the ergonomic deficiencies of the tool. We can
6
http://www.wammi.com/using.html therefore observe a recourse to such schemas when
16
DEGAS 2007 | Proceedings 10 September 2007 | Rio de Janeiro y Brazil
certain blind users anticipate the display of information Impact of E- References to E-services perceived E-services perceived
or interpret inexplicit or polysemous wording by calling services on the theme in 8 more as a source of more as a source of
the lives of interviews improvement deterioration
on their navigation habits: “Normally, we should find VDP
this information by clicking here…” On the level of
Social 21 13 (62%) 8 (38%)
navigation strategies, we can observe that novices opted
dimension
more often to use search engines to enter the key words Autonomy, social Disembodied relation to
of the scenarios to perform (on average 4 of 5 novices) integration (through machines (absence of
equal access), personalised attention
whereas the experts preferred going to the home page to Social recognition and consideration)
systematically read the proposed links with a voice (acting without help Risk of social isolation
synthesiser (3 experts of 5). The results show that the like able-bodied and fear of social
failures are more frequent for novices because the key persons) exclusion brought on by
a digital exclusion
words entered in the search engine are often vague and Psychological 12 7 (58%) 5 (42%)
imprecise. This strategy, which we could qualify as dimension
heuristic, is less efficient than the experts’ more Self-esteem, Loss of “know-how” of
evaluation (being mobility
systematic and general strategy: their mastery of the able to fend for one- Fear of losing control of
Jaws system allowed them indeed to consult different self) information transmitted
the different links very quickly and their experience Conservation of (hacking), or increased
with E-services also gives them the possibility to confidentiality and control (cross
privacy of personal referencing of
promptly locate the most pertinent elements to reach information information.)
their goal. Feeling of helplessness
when confronted with
These usage problems come specifically from the an environment
choice of conception that does not take into account the perceived as complex
perceptive limits of the level of participants, and more Cognitive 11 8 (73%) 3 (27%)
generally the principles of accessibility: for example, dimension
Ability to read, Entropy phenomena:
we can cite newly opening contextual menus remaining classify and collect Sorting through the
unsignalled the appearance of contextual menus not information in a mass of information
virtual environment presented
signalled, the density of information presented (over 84 "Demystification" of Standardised content of
links on a single opening page of a municipal site), the the administrative E-services and
absence of textual alternatives to images, the incoherent process through a inadequacies to the
structure of pages organised in table format, the use of simplified access needs and profiles of the
Acquisition of an VDP
javascript which makes the screen reader used (Jaws) administrative culture
obsolete, insufficiently explicit links (with do not
consider the remaining text content), the opening of Instrumental 13 8 (61%) 5 (39%)
and
new windows not signalled, etc. operational Comfort of life: more Insufficient digita
dimension mobility accessibility
Other difficulties common to both groups show, instead, Possibility for tenfold
a lack of ergonomics of the sites (according to [1]). It is increase in action,
mainly a matter of certain polysemic terms interaction, and
information
(Téléprocédures~Téléservices), of confusing visited and Total 57 36 (63%) 21 (37%)
non-visited links, of the non-deactivation of links on
the current page, of unclear error messages, of the Table 2: Main results of thematic analyses of acceptability
dynamic reorganisation of the menus from one page to interviews
another, etc. In the end, these results prove that these
sites do not take into consideration the inabilities of Overall, the visually disabled persons questioned felt
VDP, and specifically for E-services novices. The that the benefits of the E-services far outweighed the
accessibility to certain content is very difficult, short of difficulties posed (63% to 37%). E-services thus open
impossible; but moreover, the use of E-services “spaces of possibility” that allow DP not only to avoid
generates a greater mental load that hinders all the cognitive and operative constraints (spatial and
involvement in the process (shown by the mediocre temporal) due to their disability, but also to regain a
level of efficiency and by the efforts made to overcome certain autonomy and freedom of action.
the obstacles to use). These new perspectives contribute to their
psychological stability and personal fulfilment (self-
Analysis of acceptability esteem). Nevertheless, these people do not idealise
The thematic analysis performed on these data brought these new services either since they are well aware of
out several themes grouped into contributions and risks the stakes linked to the lack of accessibility. Therefore,
related to the use of E-services (cf. Table 2 below). if administrations are not able to better organize their
electronic services, there is a great risk of marginalizing
people with specific needs even further. From this point
of view, the lack of accessibility represents an
17
additional factor of exclusion and an obstacle to the disabled persons are subjected to and as a factor
integration of disabled persons. contributing to their exclusion and their social isolation.
Conversely, an exclusive and excessive use of these
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CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION
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Our study enables us to show that the conditions of use
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providing him autonomy. The mastery of these ICT http://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/
could therefore result in the modification of his own Drafts/bcase/soc#social
perception, the redefinition of his relationship with his
entourage and the amelioration of his capacity for social
integration. However, these contributions could be
limited by the choice of conception. We have, in fact,
shown that the quality of ergonomics and the
insufficient level of accessibility of the interfaces risk
frustrating the user’s interaction with the administrative
sites and in the end hindering their appropriation and
acceptance.
Also, in opting for environments that do not take into
account the specific needs and aptitudes of disabled
persons, the site creators risk establishing a sort of
"technological glass ceiling" that prevents their disabled
users from using the E-services offered naturally,
whereas able-bodied persons do so with no apparent
difficulty. This digital exclusion would be amplified by
a social exclusion if the services could only be accessed
by the technological channel -- as is planned in the law
concerning administrative modernisation.
In sum, the digital chasm resulting from the lack of
technological accessibility can be addressed as an
additional dimension that adds to the social chasms that
18