Accessibility and usability problems encountered on websites and applications in mobile devices by blind and normal-vision users

Abstract

This paper aimed to investigate the accessibility problems encountered by visually disabled and mainstream users on websites and native applications using mobile devices. A total of 10 participants, consisting of 6 blind users and 4 mainstream users took part in this study. A sample of 4 websites and their respective 4 native applications from commercial and governmental organizations were selected and evaluated by means of usability tests. The evaluation resulted in a total of 514 problems encountered, being 409 by blind users and 105 by normal-vision users. The most frequent and most severe problems encountered by blind users on the mobile applications and websites are detailed and compared to the impact they had on mainstream users. The results show initial evidence of critical problems that need to be addressed in the development of mobile applications and websites. Further, they point out to the need of performing more in-depth investigation of accessibility problems encountered by users with visual disabilities to establish effective recommendations to designers. The paper also showed that blind users were more severely impacted by problems in such devices than normal-vision users.