A person reaches a form by keyboard, hears each field label, corrects a specific error, reviews the answer, and receives a clear confirmation.
Chapter 11 / 14
Review completion across different abilities
Check whether people can perceive, understand, operate, and complete the task.
Your goalAudit one three-step task with keyboard and high zoom. Record the entry point, each focus change, the recovery step, and the final confirmation.
01 / Begin with the task
The principle
Accessibility becomes concrete when a person can reach the goal through the entire workflow. Labels, structure, focus, contrast, timing, and recovery all contribute to that outcome.
- Keyboard path
- The sequence of controls and actions available through keyboard operation.
- Focus
- The current interaction target for keyboard and many assistive technology users.
- Equivalent outcome
- A route that lets people complete the same meaningful task through different needs or modes.
Choose a real task and follow it from entry through completion. Navigate by keyboard, inspect visible focus, and verify labels and headings with assistive technology. Review text and control contrast, zoom and reflow, error messages, timing, and the confirmation state.
Use the relevant WCAG criteria as a technical baseline and involve people with varied access needs in research. Record the point where the task becomes difficult, the effect on completion, and the change to test. This connects a criterion to the person's experience.
02 / Follow a method
Apply it in four steps
- Name one task and its successful outcome.
- Complete it using keyboard, zoom, and assistive technology.
- Check relevant WCAG criteria and record barriers in context.
- Revise and retest the full route with people.
03 / Compare outcomes
Strong and weak execution
A person reaches the form, loses focus inside a dialog, hears a generic error, and spends additional steps locating the correction.
Why the outcome changes
The strong route supports completion from entry through confirmation. The weak route reveals a focus and recovery barrier at the moment a person needs to correct an answer. Review the entire task, then connect each observed barrier to the relevant accessibility criterion and a retest with people.
04 / Use the method
Practice on a real screen
Audit one three-step task with keyboard and high zoom. Record the entry point, each focus change, the recovery step, and the final confirmation.
Review your work
- The audit follows a meaningful task from entry to confirmation.
- Each barrier includes the person's action and its consequence.
- The proposed change has a criterion and a full-task retest.
Keep your observation, interpretation, and proposed change together. Use the related patterns to inspect complete interaction states.