What Do We Mean by "Usable"? - III

Accessibility and usability are siblings. In the broadest sense, accessibility is about having access to the products needed to accomplish a goal. But in this book when we talk about accessibility, we are looking at what makes products usable by people who have disabilities. Making a product usable for people with disabilities —or who are in special contexts, or both —almost always benefits people who do not have disabilities. Considering accessibility for people with disabilities can clarify and simplify design for people who face temporary limitations (for example, injury) or situational ones (such as divided attention or bad environmental conditions, such as bright light or not enough light). There are many tools and sets of guidelines available to assist you in making accessible designs. (We include pointers to accessibility resources on the web site that accompanies this book (see www.wiley.com/ go/usabilitytesting for more information.) You should acquaint yourself with accessibility best practices so that you can implement them in your

organization's user-centered design process along with usability testing and other methods.

Making things more usable and accessible is part of the larger discipline of •. user-centered design (UCD), which encompasses a number of methods and techniques that we will talk about later in this chapter. In turn, user-centered design rolls up into an even larger, more holistic concept called experience design. Customers may be able to complete the purchase process on your web site, but how does that mesh with what happens when the product is delivered, maintained, serviced, and possibly returned? What does your organization

do to support the research and decision-making process leading up to the purchase? All of these figure in to experience design. 

Which brings us back to usability.