RE: Lists inside nav necessary?

Thank you, Alastair, for the excellent review and details.

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-----Original Message-----
From: Alastair Campbell <[email protected]>=20
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2020 6:46 AM
To: Steve Green <[email protected]>
Cc: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Lists inside nav necessary?

Hi Steve,

You asked:
> How much user research is done prior to the creation of the WCAG =
success criteria and Understanding and Techniques pages? Is any of this =
research available for review?

In the development of WCAG 2.1 there were three task forces did wide =
ranging reviews of the available research in order to create =
requirements  / gap-analysis documents such as:
https://www.w3.org/TR/low-vision-needs/
https://www.w3.org/TR/coga-gap-analysis/=20
https://www.w3.org/TR/mobile-accessibility-mapping/

The user-needs identified in this work drove the success criteria =
development in 2.1, and to a large extent in 2.2 as well.

When you are considering research there is a range of types and no-one =
type will give you all the answers, for example:

Academic research: Tends to focus on relatively low-level factors like =
thresholds of vision or  the ability to remember a task. These almost =
never give you a direct answer to whether a particular design approach =
will work, you have to work up from the principles involved to capture =
the user-need. It also tends not to be publicly available, so the =
summaries above are useful.

Project research: Tends to be very focus on a particular product/site, =
use small numbers of participants and the results probably don't apply =
to other sites with different contexts / designs.

The other big factor I'd throw into the mix is that people's experience =
with the current state of the web has a big influence on their =
expectations. E.g. do regular users expect 2 links to be in a list? Or, =
if websites generally put navigation at the top, that might make sites =
which take another approach less usable even if their approach is more =
effective (for people without that expectation).

From a WCAG point of view, we take in all of the above. Some members of =
the group do lots of project-based usability testing which they can draw =
on in aggregate to inform their view. Some have personal experience, =
some have academic experience. Knowledge of the platforms, user-agents  =
and technology involved is also an important factor.

With all that in mind, we then try and work out if there is something we =
can identify about the *content* that is an obstacle to people with =
disabilities, and go through a process of refining that criteria.

Unfortunately, that means if someone asks about the research, it is =
rather hard to point to specific things apart from the documents above.

I hope that helps,

-Alastair