Understanding Blind User's Accessibility and Usability Problems in the Context of myITlab Simulated Environment

Universities are increasingly adopting online training and assessment tools such as Myitlab. Often, these tools pose accessibility barriers to the blind and visually impaired (BVI) students. As a first step towards developing a technology policy to accommodate BVI students in classroom, this paper investigates accessibility and usability of myITlab online environment for the BVI. The investigation adopts a taskoriented, user-centric, multi-method evaluation approach (Babu et al, 2013). The results reveal problems such as use of inappropriate text alternatives, use of nested tables, and inconsistency in the user interface, inadequate keyboard operability, inappropriate reading order, and inappropriate instructions. The presence of critical accessibility and usability issues suggests a probable misalignment in the product accessibility life cycle processes. It also suggests the need of involving users with disabilities in product design and evaluation to ensure that, the intrinsic accessibility functionality of the product is accessible and usable.