Just Pay, Mede!
If you are blind, using Websites can be tricky at the best of times, especially when it comes to making online payments. Mede is blind and uses a screen reader. Her challenge today is to make a card payment at the final stage of a long application form that actually ran to 10 pages long! How do you think she got on?
Transcript:
Hello
Making payments on websites
can sometimes be difficult
If you are disabled, it can be
very difficult, if not impossible
In this video, I'm going to show you why
This is Mede She has a master's
degree in Communication and Media Studies
When she was nine, she developed
a degenerative eye condition
It ultimately left her blind, and she uses
a screen reader to browse websites
She is part of my website accessibility
testing team
Her challenge today is to make a card
payment
Let's see how she got on
By the way, you will also a voice of JAWS
Her screen reader
JAWS is telling her what is on the page
and how she can interact with it
However, what JAWS thinks is on a web
page is not always
the same as what is showing on the web
page
As we are about to find out,
what happened?
That's opened the help page
I thought if said choose your payment
method
Yeah, it's actually opened the payment
page help Oh my God I can't go back
Why can't I go back?
Mede appears to be stuck
She's inadvertently opened to help screen
in the new window, and she can't go back
How has this happened?
Let's rewind and listen to JAWS
If you look at the red box,
that is what JAWS is reading out
Select your payment method
We can see that Mede chose
the question mark which open the help
screen, but it did not say to her screen
reader that it was a question mark
It just said link graphic
Choose your payment method
And then it said opens in a new window
So she heard the words
choose your payment type and selected it
So you've ended up in a in a help page
that that's not very helpful
because you're stuck in it
Ironically speaking, yeah She is stuck
There is only one thing I can do
and I really don't like it
I don't like it at all
I have to take over Mede's screen
to get her out of this
quite a lot of things
Can I see if I can get you out of it?
Yes please
I don't if I can Yeah
So what you did is you clicked on that
thinking that was going to allow you
to choose your payment method
But what it is, is an actual question mark
that opens the help box
Are you serious? Oh, dear
So now we're back on the payment page
Mary needs to enter the card number
No problem
Now for the expiry date
It didn't
let me know what month I was
speaking more ir year, I was speaking
I just had to use the numbers
If The month and you were not labeled
So she did not know what they were
She has a guess
Think about it
You are entering credit card information
You have to be extremely careful because
you do not want the payment to fail
It may force
a restart of the whole process
when you are using
any kind of assistive technology
It adds an extra layer of complication
you are naturally going to be extra
careful
Now for the address
Great
The details were filled in from the form
previously, so that was fine
Now we must enter the country
Countries are always a challenge
because they usually involve big dropdown
lists,
as there are 195 countries in the world
But there's more
If you are in England, that is part of the
United Kingdom or the UK, which is it?
On the ten page form It was England
So Mede's first thought is
that this would be as well
Or perhaps not
I guess it must be
Got there in the end
so now just choose the button to pay
You have three buttons
Start again
Make payment
Cancel
What's worse?
On the left, the buttons have before
the text on the right
It comes after
the last thing Mede wants to do
After all
this time is to start again or cancel
So she needs to be sure
Anyway, she so close now
Is she going to make it?
Yes Go, Mede
However, she could not have done it
without my help
Yet it so easily could have been fixed
All it needs is a simple label,
and hopefully it will be
this is why testing with disabled
people is so important
If you would like to see
another challenge, watch this
My name is Clive Loseby I'm passionate
about website accessibility
If you'd like to know more, drop me
a comment or check out the links below
Thank yo