Cognitive Accessibility Testing: Key Steps

Cognitive accessibility testing ensures digital products are easier to use for individuals with cognitive disabilities, such as challenges with memory, attention, or comprehension. It benefits all users by creating clearer, more user-friendly experiences and can also lead to higher revenue and compliance with accessibility laws.

Key Takeaways:

• What it is: Designing digital content for better usability by people with cognitive disabilities.
• Why it matters: Nearly 13% of U.S. adults have cognitive disabilities, and accessible products can improve usability for everyone.
• Steps to test:
  1. Create user personas focusing on cognitive needs.
  2. Recruit participants with diverse disabilities.
  3. Develop clear, straightforward test materials.
  4. Use a mix of automated tools (e.g., readability checkers, color contrast analyzers) and manual testing to address usability.
  5. Analyze feedback, prioritize fixes, and validate changes.

Testing combines preparation, tools, and user feedback to identify and resolve barriers, ensuring a better experience for all users, not just those with disabilities.

How to Prepare for Testing

Effective testing starts with solid preparation. This means developing realistic user personas, selecting suitable participants, and creating test materials that are easy for everyone to engage with. The process begins with crafting targeted user personas and defining meaningful test tasks.

Create User Personas and Test Tasks

Accessibility personas are fictional profiles that represent users with cognitive disabilities. Unlike traditional personas, these emphasize access needs and cognitive challenges. They’re invaluable for identifying barriers and fostering empathy within your team.

Whitney Quesenbery, a leading expert in accessibility, highlights the importance of seeing users as whole individuals:

"I think personas add something that's often missing in discussions about accessibility, which is the people and their lives. We often think about designing for someone who's blind or designing for someone who's deaf, but we don't think about designing for Jacob. He's a paralegal, an equipment geek, and loves innovative tools. His blindness is just one facet of who he is. It's not the only thing we should be thinking about. We should be thinking about everything about the person".

When creating personas for cognitive accessibility, focus on user needs rather than medical labels. Instead of labeling a persona as "autistic", describe their needs, like "requires information to be presented in a clear and straightforward way". This approach shifts the focus to abilities and solutions rather than limitations.

Your personas should include practical details such as job roles, industries, and daily environments to create a well-rounded picture of their lives. Add a section like "Day to Day with My Disability", outlining the tools they use, challenges they encounter, and what could help them succeed.

Build personas using accurate data from trusted sources like the CDC, and use clear, concise language. While personas help you align with WCAG principles - perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust - they are not a replacement for real-world testing.

For test tasks, design scenarios that reflect your personas’ goals. For instance, if a persona is a busy parent who needs to complete forms quickly, create tasks around filling out applications or making purchases under time constraints.

Find Participants with Cognitive Needs

Once your personas are ready, the next step is recruiting participants whose experiences align with those profiles. Finding participants with cognitive disabilities requires extra effort. Samuel Proulx, Accessibility Evangelist at Fable, underscores the importance of prioritizing accessibility:

"The first step is to make sure accessibility is on your company's radar. Too often, people do research that doesn't involve people with disabilities at all".

Start by building relationships with organizations that support people with disabilities. These partnerships take time but provide access to participants who can offer genuine feedback. If internal resources are limited, consider hiring a firm specializing in accessibility recruitment.

Your screener survey must be accessible to everyone. A crucial question to include is: "Do you use any kind of assistive technology?". Use checkboxes for responses to make it easy to answer.

Recruit a diverse group of participants, including individuals with visual, auditory, physical, cognitive disabilities, and speech challenges. This variety ensures you understand how different users interact with your product.

Fair compensation is essential. Proulx explains why standard incentives often fall short:

"Using assistive technology isn't something you're born knowing. It's a skill you have to learn. People with assistive technology are in a skilled pool, and skilled pools must be properly compensated. A $5 Amazon gift card probably won't get the high-quality participants you need to achieve the best results".

Pay participants fairly, considering the specialized expertise they bring to your testing process.

Create Clear Test Materials

With user personas and participants in place, the focus shifts to developing accessible test materials. These materials must be clear and easy to understand, especially for participants with varying cognitive abilities. Avoid jargon and use simple, straightforward language.

Visual design plays a key role in accessibility. Break content into concise sections with plenty of white space. This helps participants focus on tasks rather than struggling to process dense instructions.

Incorporate familiar icons, symbols, and design patterns that participants recognize. If introducing something new, provide clear explanations. The goal is to make the materials intuitive and user-friendly.

Provide step-by-step instructions for complex tasks, breaking them into manageable actions. Each step should be actionable and easy to follow. If errors occur, error messages should clearly explain what went wrong and how to fix it.

Help participants avoid mistakes by offering examples, using consistent terminology, and including helpful hints at key points. These small adjustments make a big difference in the testing experience.

Before using the materials with participants, test them with your team. If your colleagues find the instructions confusing, participants with cognitive disabilities will likely face even greater challenges. Clear, well-designed materials not only benefit participants but also lead to more accurate and reliable results.

Testing Tools and Methods

With test materials ready and participants onboard, it's time to pick tools that blend automated and manual methods to meet specific testing needs.

Key Testing Tools

Cognitive accessibility testing requires a variety of tools to address different elements of user experience. Here are some essential ones:

• Readability checkers: These tools ensure your content aligns with the reading level of your audience. They analyze sentence structure, word choice, and length to make sure your material is accessible to users with diverse cognitive abilities.
• Color contrast analyzers: These tools verify that your text and background colors comply with WCAG standards. Proper color contrast is critical for users with visual processing challenges or attention disorders, as poor contrast can make it harder for them to focus and process information.
• Screen reader compatibility tools: These test how well your content works with assistive technologies like screen readers. While primarily used by people with visual impairments, these tools also benefit individuals with dyslexia or attention disorders who rely on audio processing.
• AI-powered accessibility tools: These tools bring advanced features like GPT-driven content reviews, cognitive load detection, and multilingual readability grading. A recent report shows that 79% of organizations are integrating AI capabilities into their accessibility strategies. AI tools can uncover issues that traditional methods might miss, such as confusing navigation or overly complex user flows.

Next, let’s explore how manual and automated methods complement each other in identifying accessibility barriers.

Manual vs. Automated Testing

Automated testing is great for quickly scanning large volumes of code for common accessibility issues. For example, it can flag missing alt text, incorrect heading structures, or poor color contrast in minutes. However, automated tools have their limitations. They can address about 30% of WCAG success criteria, and even the best tools identify only 40% of accessibility barriers on a webpage with 142 issues.

Manual testing, on the other hand, brings the human perspective. It evaluates task completion, workflow clarity, and overall usability - things automated tools can't fully grasp. This is especially important for cognitive accessibility, where user experience and context often outweigh technical compliance.

To get the best results, use a combination of both methods. Start with automated testing to catch straightforward technical issues, then follow up with manual testing to uncover barriers that require human judgment. This balanced approach ensures both technical and user-experience challenges are addressed.

Recommended Testing Tools

Building on these methods, here are some tools that can streamline your testing process and address cognitive accessibility challenges:

• Equal Access AI (EA-AI): This tool uses natural language processing and AI to evaluate content clarity, readability, and user flows for people with cognitive disabilities. It also offers GPT-powered content reviews to flag confusing language and cognitive load detection to identify overwhelming areas.
• Evinced: Using computer vision and machine learning, Evinced excels at finding complex issues in dynamic content and single-page applications. Its intelligent scanning methods capture problems that occur during user interactions.
• Microsoft Accessibility Insights: This tool provides AI-based contrast ratio checks and simulates screen reader usage. It also clusters issues using machine learning, helping prioritize fixes, and offers keyboard and screen reader testing simulations for better insights.

For basic accessibility checks, tools like WAVE and axe remain reliable options. However, to address cognitive accessibility comprehensively, supplement these with more advanced tools.

When choosing AI-powered tools, focus on ones that offer robust WCAG compliance checks, integrate automated and manual workflows, and provide actionable suggestions. Look for features like role-based dashboards and seamless integration with your development pipeline.

How to Run the Tests

Once you've laid the groundwork and selected your tools, it's time to dive into running cognitive accessibility tests. A structured approach is key to gathering meaningful insights from users.

Testing Process Steps

Start by conducting interviews to understand participants' cognitive needs, technology use, and the challenges they commonly face. This background information helps you tailor the testing process to each participant, ensuring a more effective session.

Next, move into task-based testing. Ask users to complete specific scenarios with your product - like signing up for an account, finding particular information, or making a purchase. Pay close attention to signs of cognitive overload and how they navigate through various sections of your product.

Usability studies should target critical areas such as how clear the navigation is, whether the content is easy to understand, and if the layout supports efficient use. Observe if participants can find information quickly, follow instructions, and process error messages without becoming overwhelmed.

These steps provide a strong foundation for structured test sessions.

How to Run Test Sessions

Start each session by establishing a comfortable atmosphere. Explain the purpose clearly, reassuring participants that the goal is to evaluate the design, not their abilities. Emphasize that there are no "wrong" answers - every insight they share is valuable.

During the session, encourage participants to think aloud, sharing their thoughts as they interact with the product. Even small comments can provide significant insights. Avoid stepping in to guide them or answer questions directly; your role is to observe and learn. Use open-ended questions to gather detailed feedback without steering them toward specific responses.

Once the sessions are complete, shift your focus to capturing and analyzing the data.

Record and Analyze Feedback

Document everything - from body language and verbal cues to moments of frustration or confusion. Pay special attention to what users were trying to achieve and where they encountered obstacles, as these moments often highlight areas needing improvement.

Consolidate all findings, including automated test results, to identify recurring issues. Organize feedback by severity and look for patterns across participants. This process helps pinpoint major barriers, such as unclear navigation, overly complex layouts, or confusing error messages. Address the most critical problems first to make the biggest impact.

Keep in mind that every participant’s experience is unique. Avoid generalizing feedback from one individual to everyone with cognitive disabilities. Instead, focus on recurring themes across sessions to identify issues that affect a broader group of users. The insights you gather here will guide the next steps in refining your product.

Review Results and Make Improvements

Once you've completed your structured testing process, the next step is to refine your product's cognitive accessibility. This involves turning raw testing data into practical improvements through careful analysis, prioritization, and validation.

Analyze and Rank Your Findings

Start by organizing the data you gathered during testing. Look for patterns - are there specific areas where multiple users struggled or expressed similar frustrations? These recurring issues often highlight the most pressing problems that need to be addressed first.

Use a severity rating system to evaluate each issue. Consider how often the issue occurs, how much it impacts the user experience, and whether it consistently hinders tasks.

Keep market impact in mind when setting priorities. Even small issues can deter users if they occur on key pages, like your homepage or checkout process. Focus on areas that shape first impressions or play a critical role in user engagement.

Tailor your priorities to the type of content your site offers. For instance, if your site relies heavily on images, missing or poorly written alt text should be a top concern. For video-heavy platforms, captions and transcripts take precedence. Any issue that consistently disrupts screen reader users should move to the top of your list.

Fix Cognitive Accessibility Issues

Once you've ranked the issues, tackle the most severe ones first. Simplifying language is often a quick win - swap out jargon for plain language, break up dense paragraphs, and use familiar terms that everyone can understand.

Improvements to navigation can address multiple issues at once. Make sure menus are clear and consistent, with descriptive labels that help users understand exactly where a link will take them. Ensure your navigation works seamlessly with assistive technologies like screen readers and keyboard inputs.

Consistency in layout is another important factor. Define predictable patterns for where key elements - like search bars, contact information, or primary actions - appear across your site. A consistent layout reduces cognitive load and helps users with disabilities navigate more confidently.

Work closely with developers to ensure compatibility with assistive technologies, and collaborate with designers to maintain a balance between accessibility and visual appeal.

Forms deserve special attention since they often serve as critical conversion points. Add clear labels, provide helpful error messages, and break complex forms into smaller, manageable steps. Test every form element with assistive technologies to ensure users can complete them without barriers.

Error handling is also key. Write error messages that are easy to understand, explaining what went wrong and how to fix it. Avoid technical jargon or generic warnings - be specific and supportive.

Once you've made these fixes, retesting is essential to confirm that the barriers have been removed.

Test Again and Validate Changes

After implementing improvements, a validation phase ensures your changes meet your accessibility goals. It's not enough to fix issues - you need to verify that your solutions work as intended and haven't created new problems.

Gather feedback from users with disabilities to understand how the updates impact their experience. Their input will reveal whether the changes have truly addressed the barriers or if additional adjustments are needed.

Measure progress by tracking metrics like task completion rates, time on task, and error frequency before and after the fixes. These numbers provide tangible evidence of improvement and support the case for continued investment in accessibility.

Run regular accessibility audits using WCAG standards to assess your progress. Compare scores from before and after testing to show the impact of your efforts. This data is invaluable when presenting results to stakeholders or planning future updates.

Combine automated and manual testing to ensure your fixes are effective. Use assistive technologies to test forms and interactive elements, run automated scans after updates, check content readability, verify color contrast, and confirm that navigation paths remain intuitive. Together, these methods ensure that your efforts successfully remove barriers and improve usability for all users.

Conclusion

Cognitive accessibility testing is a continuous effort that reshapes how digital products are designed and experienced. By following the steps outlined in this guide, you can create products that are inclusive and functional for everyone, not just a specific group.

Start with thorough preparation: define user personas, recruit participants with cognitive needs, and design clear, purposeful test tasks.

Choose the right mix of tools and methods for your team and product. Automated tools are great for spotting common issues quickly, but manual testing with real users uncovers the nuanced challenges that can significantly affect usability. Both approaches - quantitative and qualitative - are essential for a well-rounded understanding.

Effective test sessions require patience and careful observation. Focus on capturing genuine user feedback without influencing responses. The difficulties users face often point directly to areas needing improvement.

The analysis and implementation phase is where the real transformation happens. Prioritize issues based on their severity and impact, and address the most critical barriers first. Often, changes like using simpler language, ensuring consistent navigation, and improving form accessibility make the biggest difference.

Ongoing validation ensures these improvements stick. As discussed earlier, accessibility isn’t a one-time effort. It’s an ongoing process. Vaibhav Kulshrestha, author of GenQE-AI Based Quality Engineering, highlights this shift perfectly:

"Continuous Accessibility represents a paradigm shift in how we approach digital inclusivity - moving from reactive, last-minute fixes to proactive integration throughout the entire software development lifecycle."

This proactive approach involves integrating accessibility testing into every stage of development, training teams on accessibility principles, and conducting regular audits as your product evolves. The payoff? Happier users, a broader audience, and products that genuinely serve diverse needs.

Cognitive accessibility testing isn’t just about meeting compliance standards - it’s about crafting digital experiences that respect and accommodate the full range of human cognitive abilities. By removing barriers, you improve the overall user experience for everyone.

From preparation to ongoing validation, this strategic approach ensures your products remain inclusive, accessible, and impactful.

FAQs

How does cognitive accessibility testing enhance the user experience for everyone, not just individuals with cognitive disabilities?

Cognitive accessibility testing improves the user experience by ensuring digital products are simpler to use, easier to navigate, and more efficient for everyone. By pinpointing and resolving obstacles that might confuse or overwhelm users, this approach helps reduce effort and frustration when completing tasks.

The benefits extend beyond individuals with cognitive disabilities. Prioritizing clear design, easy-to-follow navigation, and inclusive features enhances usability and satisfaction for all users, creating a smoother and more enjoyable experience for everyone.

What challenges might arise when recruiting participants with cognitive disabilities for accessibility testing?

Recruiting individuals with cognitive disabilities for accessibility testing presents a unique set of challenges. Cognitive impairments vary widely, and each type comes with its own considerations, meaning recruitment methods often need to be adjusted to ensure everyone feels included and supported.

This process can also take considerable time. It often involves working closely with caregivers or support networks to meet participants' specific needs. Beyond recruitment, creating an environment that feels welcoming and accommodating is key. This not only encourages meaningful participation but also helps ensure the testing results are accurate and reflective of real-world experiences.

How do manual and automated testing work together to improve cognitive accessibility?

When it comes to cognitive accessibility, manual and automated testing work hand in hand, each tackling unique challenges. Automated tools excel at quickly spotting technical issues - like missing labels or poorly structured code - that might impact compliance with accessibility standards. These tools are essential for catching errors that could otherwise slip through the cracks.

On the other hand, manual testing digs deeper into the user experience. It helps identify usability hurdles, such as confusing navigation paths or instructions that are too complex for some users to follow - issues that automated tools often miss.

By blending these two approaches, you can conduct a more comprehensive accessibility review. This combination ensures your product not only adheres to technical standards but also provides a smoother, more inclusive experience for all users, including those with cognitive disabilities.