The false dichotomy between accessibility and usability
The false dichotomy between accessibility and usability
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可访问性和可用性之间的错误二分法
DOI：
10.1145/2461121.2461146
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发表时间：
2013
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Ed H. Chi
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Ed H. Chi
传统上，无障碍研究人员集中在无障碍设计，使信息提供给不同的用户能力和限制。可用性的实践者和研究者已经把他们的努力集中在使信息界面能够被普通的健全的用户使用上。
这种二分法的问题在于两个假设的神话。第一，“普通”用户的神话。心理学实验的第一条规则是，实验中的个体差异往往会压倒你试图观察到的任何效果。我们使用“普通用户”作为一个概念，这样我们就有了一个原型用户来设计，而事实上，我们通常是为一组不同的用户角色、用例和技能水平进行设计。第二，存在“无障碍”设计的神话。设计本质上是一种练习，在这种练习中，我们针对特定的用例集进行优化，同时不强调其他不太重要的用例。因此，设计永远不可能完全“无障碍”。
如果我们认为这种二分法是错误的，我们就会开始意识到，这两个领域之间的一整套问题是同一个问题。如果我们拒绝二分法，那么我们就会看到许多可访问性问题也是可用性问题，反之亦然。例如，社交媒体中的语言障碍、移动的设备及其在行走时的易用性，以及使用语音而不是打字输入文本的能力，都是可访问性和可用性问题。要强调的是，可用性和可访问性都是从根本上获得信息资源和知识的能力。总的来说，我看到了很多弥合这种错误二分法的机会，并将在这次演讲中尝试给出一些例子。
Traditionally, accessibility researchers have focused on the barrier-free designs that make information available to a diverse set of user abilities and constraints. Usability practitioners and researchers have focused their efforts on making information interfaces usable by the average abled-bodied user.
The problem in this dichotomy is the myth of two assumptions. First, there is the myth of the "average" user. The first rule about psychology experiments is that often the individual subject variations in an experiment often overwhelm any effects that you're attempting to observe. We use the "average user" as a concept so that we have a prototypical user to design for, when in fact, often we're designing for a set of different user persona, use cases, and skill levels. Second, there is the myth of "barrier-free" design. Design is inherently an exercise in which we optimize for a certain set of use cases, while de-emphasizing other less important use cases. As a result, a design can never be entirely "barrier-free".
If we treat this dichotomy as false, we start to realize that a whole set of problems between the two fields are one and the same. If we reject the dichotomy, then we see that many accessibility problems are also usability problems, and vice versa. For example, language barriers in social media, mobile devices and their ease of use while walking, and the ability to input text using voice rather than typing are all accessibility and usability problems. To emphasize, usability and accessibility are both fundamentally about the ability to get at information resources and knowledge. Broadly, I see many opportunities to bridge this false dichotomy and will attempt to give examples during this talk.