End user testing from print disabled people

While not common for small presses, and likely this is beyond available capacity, best practice would be to approach end users with disabilities to test a sample of book files, web pages and submission systems. Below is some advice on finding user testing opportunities like this, if presses decide to go down this route.

The best feedback will always come from end users with disabilities, and from older users, as it can uncover accessibility barriers that are commonly experienced by your readership, yet are not captured within legal minimum accessibility requirements. 

In most cases, including users in evaluation involves:

• getting a few people with disabilities, and depending on your target audience, older users
• including them throughout the development process to complete sample tasks on draft book files and websites so you can see how different aspects of the design and coding could be improved before publication
• discussing accessibility issues with them

Advice taken from:

W3C Involving Users in Evaluating Web Accessibility

W3C Involving Users in Web Projects for Better, Easier Accessibility

The Gov.UK website includes a set of hypothetical user profiles to give you working examples of the range of users and their needs. These can be used to develop a strong idea of accessibility use cases and may help make content design decisions.

Understanding disabilities and impairments: user profiles

More information:

AbilityNet - A Step-by-Step Guide to User Testing

AbilityNet - Product and Services - User Accessibility Testing and Research