Interview Project

The Silver Task Force of the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group plans to conduct two interview research studies to provide answers to some of the research questions identified for the project.

There are currently two interview studies planned, one on legacy information targeting the people who worked on WCAG 1.0 and 2.0, the other on conformance issues. The participants will be given the consent form and the interview questions in advance. Interviews will be conducted by members of the Silver Task Force and will be recorded for further analysis after the interview.

Interview Consent

You are invited to participate in a research study on the use of Accessibility Guidelines to improve digital accessibility for people with disabilities. This study is conducted by members of the Silver Task Force of the W3C Accessibility Guidelines Working Group and the W3C Silver Community Group.

Why does this matter?

Although your participation in this research may not benefit you personally, it will help us understand the way people use accessibility guidelines and how to improve those guidelines in a future major revision.

Time

This study will take approximately 30-60 minutes of your time. You will be asked to answer questions about your opinions and experience with development of/conformance of accessibility guidelines.

Voluntary Participation

Your decision to participate or decline participation in this study is completely voluntary and you have the right to terminate your participation at any time. You may skip any questions you do not wish to answer.

Confidentiality

The data from these interviews will be private by default. We will use all reasonable efforts to keep your personal information confidential, but we cannot guarantee absolute confidentiality. When this research is discussed or published, your identity will not be revealed, unless you give us permission to attribute a quotation to you. With your permission, we could use a quotation from you anonymously in the final report. Be aware that the accessibility community is small and a determined member of the community could be able to identify you based on what you say. We will make all reasonable effort to keep quotations in the final report free of identifying information unless you have requested attribution.

Permission to record the interview

We will audio-record and transcribe the interview. The transcript will help us with our analysis phase. The audio-recording will be deleted once the transcription is complete, and the transcript will be destroyed once the research is complete. Your consent to participate includes consent to be audio-recorded.

Withdrawing from the Study (48 hours)

If you decide to withdraw from the study within 48 hours after the interview, you can request that we erase or destroy the data from your interview. After 48 hours, your anonymized data may be included in analysis and may not be able to be removed. After the final report is published on the W3C website, we will not be able to retract your anonymized data, because outside websites typically repost information posted on the W3C website.

Data Storage

Once the final report is published, all the raw data (recordings, notes and any spreadsheet with your name) will be erased or destroyed. The final report will be public on the W3C website and will be archived by the W3C following their policies.

Verbal Consent

Verbal consent will be obtained at the start of the interview

Legacy Research Interviews

Objective

The purpose of this research is to capture the institutional knowledge of the people that were closely associated with WCAG 1.0 and 2.0.

Research Questions

Note that some of these research questions are not directly applicable, but could be used to guide development of questions or followup.

How well does the current content of W3C Accessibility Guidelines meet the accessibility needs of people with disabilities?
For guideline development initiatives, what have been the key drivers of the timeline (whether lag or potential speed efficiencies)?
What are the factors that determine effective (i.e. widespread) adoption of and compliance with a new set of guidelines?
Where do we set the boundaries of what to cover in accessibility guidelines? (ex: things managed by platforms, assistive tech, etc.)
What platforms should we include in the accessibility guidelines?
What should be the scope of accessibility guidelines? (Web content, native, platforms, hardware, where do you stop?)
How might we make accessibility guidelines more maintainable?
How might W3C Accessibility Guidelines make the process of keeping accessibility guidelines current achievable and timely?

Target Audience (10-15)

Members of the WCAG Working Group during WCAG 1.0 and 2.0
People who had prominent or substantial opposition to parts of the work (we can get these names from legacy conversations or from the comments in the W3C archives)

Interview Questions

Tell me about your role in developing [WCAG 1, WCAG 2, UAAG, or ATAG]
Tell me about the “no brainers” and why they were straightforward to resolve.
Tell me about the most difficult issue you had to deal with.
Tell me about the the solutions to difficult issues that worked well in hindsight.
Tell me about the solutions to difficult issues that you regret in hindsight.
Tell me about the resolutions (if any) where you disagreed with the decision of the working group.
Tell me about any outcomes from WCAG 1 or 2 that were unexpected.
What might we do differently in developing Silver?

Conformance Structure Interviews

Objective

[needs more work] We are doing a design exercise. The results of these interviews are to help us make actionable design decisions.

Research Questions

How well does the current conformance model for W3C Accessibility Guidelines serve accessibility for people with disabilities short-term and long-term?
Where do we set the boundaries of what to cover in accessibility guidelines? (ex: things managed by platforms, assistive tech, etc.)
What platforms should we include in the accessibility guidelines?
What should be the scope of accessibility guidelines? (Web content, native, platforms, hardware, where do you stop?)
How flexible are the current web accessibility standards in supporting emerging consumer technology trends?
How might we make conforming with guidelines more straightforward?
How might me make accessibility guidelines that provide needed guidance for different roles & industries (e.g. developers, designers, policy makers, tool developers, education, platform developers)?
How might we make adoption of accessibility guidelines more straightforward (minimize disruption to process and practice and culture)?

Target Audience

Members of the WCAG Working Group during WCAG 1.0 and 2.0
Prominent figures in accessibility with knowledge of nuances of conformance
Policymakers past and present
Lawyers in civil rights, disability rights, and technology innovation (get Dave’s phrasing)

Interview Questions

Tell me about what works about WCAG 2.0 Conformance?
Tell me about what doesn’t work about WCAG 2.0 Conformance?
Tell me about what is needed to serve policymaker needs?
Tell me about what is needed to serve WCAG users (developers, designers, evaluators)?
Tell me about what would you change about WCAG conformance in Silver?
What should we be thinking about that we probably aren’t?

Notes on Interviews:

Reminder for all of us, the reason we are asking the questions is to help us make decisions when we move into the next phase of the process. This is design research, not academic research. This should help us make decisions about what to do next.
Provide prompts for the interviewer. Jennison will email examples
Generic Prompts: “Tell me more about that? Can you expand on that?”
Shari has access to some older software for analysis. We need to test this on the pilot. 50-100 interviews need the software for quantitative analysis.
Use the pilot to check for validity and reliability. Is this what we are trying to find out? If there are two people doing the analysis, then we have to make sure we are theming them the same way? We have to have standards for how we are interpreting the information. Set up a simple rubric.
We are doing a design exercise. As Henry Ford famously said, "if I built what people wanted, I would have built a faster horse." We don't want to build a faster horse. We need to dig in deeper for what people really need.