6.5.7 Inclusivity measures

What this heading covers

The defined term accessibility sets the frame: the widest range of user needs, characteristics and capabilities, not a single disability category. Inclusivity is measured by whether people can complete tasks, not by whether a page passes a scanner. The two are related and not the same. The population has to include people with visual, motor, cognitive, hearing and situational limitations, and the measure should record which groups were represented. A result from one group is a result for that group.

Record position: family 14 of 40 in clause 6, under 6.5 Interaction capability, which carries 8 families. It is one of the 40 families a programme has to map its measures to, and its elements are listed below. The heading is 6.5.7 in the public contents; the text behind it is not public.

How a measure for this family is built

Count the user groups that completed the representative tasks as the numerator over the groups studied. A stronger measure is the task completion rate within each group, reported separately, because an average across groups hides a group that cannot use the product at all.

What to put in place before publication

1. Name the groups and recruit real participants from them.
2. Report per group, not only as an average.

Evidence to keep

Two questions to ask

• Which user groups were represented, and how were they recruited?
• Are completion rates reported per group, not only as an average?

Where teams usually fall short

• An accessibility statement treated as evidence of inclusivity, with no user involved.

What the number cannot tell you

It cannot tell you that the product is inclusive for a group you did not recruit. The result is a statement about the groups in the study.

What happens next

User assistance and self-descriptiveness are the two families that most often close an inclusivity gap.