Testing your product for #accessibility yourself will *never* compare with testing with real users.

This week we conducted 5 usability interviews with frequent screen reader users. Here are some things I observed:

(a thread) 🧵👇

1. Not one of our interviewees used the tab key as their primary method of navigating.

The most common method of navigation was by traversing a list of all the links or headings on the page.

Brings it home why semantic headings and descriptive link text are so important!

2. Interviewees would have used our site in tablet sized browser widths if we hadn’t asked them to change to full screen.

Reminds me that we can't assume people are experiencing our "desktop" layouts just because their device is a computer.

3. The logo every site has in their nav linking to the homepage? Interviewees looked for (and expected) it to be announced "Home", *not* the name of our org.

Reminder that the alt text of images that are the only content in a link should describe the *function* of the link!

4. Interviewees often searched for specific pages by typing the first letter of the word they expected the link to start with into the list of links eg "p" for "pricing", "c" for "contact us"

Having fun with your link text ("Get in touch!") may be on brand, but not be helpful

5. None of our interviewees use skip-to-content links. This surprised me, but the latest @webaim screen reader survey does say:

“It's important to note that "skip" links provide distinct benefits for sighted keyboard users, even if their usage among screen reader users is mixed”