SurveyGizmo - Online Survey Software : An Online Survey Tool for Creating Surveys, Polls, Forms and Quizes » accessiblity

Building Accessible Forms: Conference & Slides

Brittany Heidtke — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 19:49:07 +0000

The Accessing Higher Ground Conference has officially started, and Scott McDaniel (SurveyGizmo’s CEO) will be speaking later on today about Accessible Online Forms. The conference is specially tailored for those in the Higher Education community and focuses on how to create a more accessible environment for those who have physical, sensory, and learning disabilities. For those of you who could not make it today and for those of you who would like a little refresher, you can find the slides to his presentation below:

Download the Accessible Online Forms Slides (pdf format) here.

Leave any questions you might have about the slides or presentation below!

Webinar at EASI: Making Surveys Accessible

Scott McDaniel — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 20:38:46 +0000

SurveyGizmo has been invited to speak about making surveys accessible and building accessible forms for EASI, Equal Access to Software and Information. EASI hosts weekly webinars on a variety of online accessibility topics. You can read more about their Accessibility Webinar schedule here or go directly to the sign-up for “Making Accessible Online Surveys”.

EASI’s request was last minute, because their scheduled speaker on this topic unfortunately fell ill. Norm Coombs of EASI googled “Accessible Surveys” and we came up. He gave us a call and we were more than happy to fill in since accessible surveys and accessible forms is something we are really passionate about.

By the way, if you haven’t had a chance to read OSU’s – Web Accessibility Center’s review of accessibility in surveys tools, please do. It’s a great detailed review of online survey tools, including SurveyGizmo. We took this survey review to heart and the next release of SurveyGizmo will implement most of the suggestions they made to even further improve accessibility in our surveys.

PS – If you aren’t familiar with the term “accessibility” as it relates to surveys, forms or other online content, that’s OK. Web Accessibility describes the degree to which the online content, website or service is able to provide the functionality to persons with disabilities in general. This might refer to someone who is blind, has reduced mobility and can’t use a mouse, etc. In an effort to make our surveys more accessible, SurveyGizmo employs methods that allow screen readers to interact with the surveys. We make the surveys keyboard navigable so someone unable to use a mouse can still interact. There is more to it than that, but you get the idea.

Tops in Online Survey Accessibility

Derek Scruggs — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 20:59:45 +0000

Recently were pleased to learn that Ohio State University recently conducted a study of accessibility in online survey tools. We pride ourselves on standards-compliant web design, and we have a strong focus on usability. OSU picked up on this:

The administrator interfaces in SurveyGizmo are a model of usability. Interfaces are clean, navigation elements are easy to find, and “flow” through the creation process seemed to us more intuitive than any of the other survey tools.

The final grade on SurveyGizmo was B+, so we still have room for improvement, but we were the highest rated of those evaluated.

The Most Accessible and Usable Survey Tool

Scott McDaniel — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 05:39:50 +0000

Update: A more recent accessible survey tool comparison was done by Ohio State University.

We have seen a lot of interest recently in SurveyGizmo’s accessibility features and how our surveys meet current accessibility and usability standards, such as Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act or the British version the DDA (Disability Discrimination Act). We are happy to report we meet Section 508 (and likely the DDA as well). Customers reviewing survey tools tell us SurveyGizmo is the most accessible survey tool on the market.

An accessibility study group at UC Berkley did an accessibility comparison of online survey tools this spring and found that SurveyGimzo came out on top. Around the same time, the Usability Professionals’ Association ran a recent article comparing SurveyGizmo and another survey tool vendor.

“Because we found an accessible tool, we stopped our search and deployed a survey with SurveyGizmo. Survey creation and activation was simple, and the results were easy to gather. But most importantly for us, our users with disabilities reported no difficulties in accessing, completing, and submitting the survey.”

Seeking an Accessible and Usable Survey Tool
By Karen Mardahl and Lisa Pappas

Why should you care if your surveys are accessible?

First, being accessible means meeting a variety of requirements in the HTML that make your survey easier to use by people who may be attempting to access them under non-traditional circumstances. For instance:

A blind user reading and navigating with a screen reader
A user with a broken hand trying to navigate solely with the keyboard
Anyone with reduced motor controls who has trouble clicking precisely
Anyone with vision issues who desires larger type or higher contrast colors (think aging baby-boomers)

Offering better accessibility in your surveys means a larger and more satisfied audience. Many of our competitors’ surveys rely solely on JavaScript and mouse interactions, making it impossible to navigate a survey and answers questions using only a keyboard.

I’ve pushed for accessible, Web Standards based design for years and have thrown my hat in the ring to promote it in the past. When I designed our web survey templates over a year ago, accessibility issues were top of mind, and we are currently working on some enhancements to improve things still further.

We will also feature an in-depth article on Building Accessible Surveys in the near future. In the meantime, let us know if we can answer any of your questions on accessible survey design.

SurveyGizmo VPAT

You can download our our VPAT here.