[WG: Accessibility] [Contrib: Evaluation System] Do radio buttons for compact likert scale have associated labels?

Fri Jan 13 14:40:44 PST 2012

Gonzalo's email included a comment about how over the phone polling will number the options (1 - 7) after stating what the end points represent. Would that fit your use case? Even with the numbers, I'm  wondering how easy it would be for a non-visual user (with or without cognitive impairment) to associate a number with the "neutral" position. Perhaps at least the center radio button could have something that indicated its special position ("4 - Neutral", "4 - no opinion", "center", etc.).

Also, Mary Stores pointed out that I left out that the question / statement associated with the scale item should be tied to the radio buttons as well (by using a the fieldset and legend elements).

I can't speak to the technical elements either. We have had some success of using a jQuery script to "patch up" the accessibility issues from older rendering engines after the page has been rendered. If there was an easy way to select uniquely select the radio buttons in a script, perhaps any needed title elements could be added in after the UI is rendered.

-Brian

-----Original Message-----
From: Daphne Ogle [mailto:daphne at media.berkeley.edu] 
Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 5:27 PM
To: Richwine, Brian L
Cc: gsilver; Aaron Zeckoski; Gary Thompson; evaluation at collab.sakaiproject.org; Sakai Accessibility WG
Subject: Re: [Contrib: Evaluation System] [WG: Accessibility] Do radio buttons for compact likert scale have associated labels?

Good points Brian.  Since our likert scale includes 7 options I think it  carries an even more significant cognitive load even for those without a cognitive impairment.  However, at the moment we are committed to a 7 point likert scale with only 3 descriptors (both end points & a mid-point).  This is for historical reasons at the university and is another discussion altogether here.  This gives me another perspective to push on it with.  In the meantime, I'm thinking we have 1 of 2 choices:

1)  if technically feasible, try something like Gonzalo was suggesting
2)  come up with labels for all the choices and figure out how to associate them with the radio buttons.

I'm guessing #2 is likely the easiest (at least short term) solution.   
I'm not a developer so I can't get into the details but given a conversation I had with Gary at Unicon (copied here), it isn't clear that there is a way to make those associations at this point.  Does anyone know if that's the case or we are missing something?

-Daphne

On Jan 13, 2012, at 1:14 PM, Richwine, Brian L wrote:

> Hmmm... Sorry, I'm no expert on Likert items. My HCI class always had 
> each item option labeled, and we were taught to keep the option values 
> symmetrical about the middle and have a definite qualifier / 
> description for each -- that is where my response was coming from!
>
> The problem I see in not providing a label is at least two fold.  
> First, that the visual nature of the likert item will be lost on non- 
> visual (blind) users. It seems to me having a distinct description for 
> each would be rather important in their case. Second, anytime a 
> screen-reader user hits a form control that isn't labeled, it is going 
> to concern them and make them have doubts as to what it is for. 
> Especially since so many web applications through in hidden input 
> controls that have absolutely no meaning (Samigo is famous for doing 
> this, for example). A very common use case is a user with traumatic 
> brain injury + blindness where there is significant cognitive 
> impairment. The radio buttons would need to have some label...
>
> -Brian
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gsilver [mailto:gsilver at umich.edu]
> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 3:42 PM
> To: Aaron Zeckoski
> Cc: Richwine, Brian L; Gary Thompson; 
> evaluation at collab.sakaiproject.org
> ; Sakai Accessibility WG
> Subject: Re: [Contrib: Evaluation System] [WG: Accessibility] Do radio 
> buttons for compact likert scale have associated labels?
>
> This seems like a case for hidden labels reflecting the collapsed 
> choices.
>
> If you group several alike collapsed scales you can see the labels in 
> the source, for example.
>
> I wonder though: a Likert scale is traditionally composed of two poles 
> and an indeterminate set of unlabeled choices between the poles. Users 
> select from these based on proximity to one pole or the other.  The 
> absence of a label in itself is important in the instrument, is what 
> am trying to say.  When the scale is presented non-visually, like in a 
> phone poll, this is recast as:
>
> "On a scale of 0 to 10 where 0 is 'I strongly disagree' and 10 is 'I 
> strongly agree'  ....."
>
> 	-Gonzalo
>
> On Jan 13, 2012, at 3:22 PM, Aaron Zeckoski wrote:
>
>> Brian,
>> This is current functionality in the tool. You can see it on the test 
>> server.
>> http://qa5-us.sakaiproject.org/portal
>>
>> The screens Daphne sent are of a look and feel change but for the 
>> accessibility exercise it may make more sense to look at the current 
>> stuff.
>>
>> -AZ
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jan 13, 2012 at 3:14 PM, Richwine, Brian L 
>> <brichwin at indiana.edu
>> > wrote:
>>> Is it possible to get access to a live version of this, or is it 
>>> only in the high-fidelity wireframe stage?
>>>
>>> It would be quite possible to label the radio buttons in the compact 
>>> likert scale for accessibility without a change in the visual 
>>> rendering.
>>>
>>> Besides using the label element, a radio button can be labeled using 
>>> the title attribute. If the radio button does not have a 
>>> corresponding label attribute, then most adaptive technologies will 
>>> look to see if a title attribute is present and will use the title 
>>> attribute as a fall back label (if present). So, the left most radio 
>>> button could be labeled with the visible "Not at all"
>>> text and the right most radio button labeled with the "Very" text.  
>>> The rest could be labeled using title attributes on the input 
>>> element. For example:
>>>
>>> <label> Strongly agree <input type="radio" ...></label> <input 
>>> type="radio" title="agree" ...> <input type="radio" title="neutral"
>>> ...> <input type="radio" title="disagree" ...> <label><input 
>>> type="radio" title="agree" ...> Strongly disagree</label>
>>>
>>> Hope this helps... The title attribute is a common technique for 
>>> label form elements for adaptive technologies when the designer does 
>>> not want the label to be visible. For more info, see:
>>>
>>> H65: Using the title attribute to identify form controls when the 
>>> label element cannot be used
>>> http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20-TECHS/H65
>>>
>>> -Brian
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: accessibility-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org
>>> [mailto:accessibility-bounces at collab.sakaiproject.org] On Behalf Of 
>>> Daphne Ogle
>>> Sent: Friday, January 13, 2012 2:44 PM
>>> To: evaluation at collab.sakaiproject.org; Sakai Accessibility WG
>>> Cc: Gary Thompson
>>> Subject: [WG: Accessibility] Do radio buttons for compact likert 
>>> scale have associated labels?
>>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> For eval sys, it looks like the inputs for the compact likert scale 
>>> do not allow for associated labels.  And the endpoint labels that 
>>> visually display aren't semantically associated to the end point 
>>> inputs/radio buttons.  Is that true?  If so, this seems like a 
>>> pretty major accessibility issue that we should look at.
>>>
>>> Thanks for any insight!
>>>
>>> - Daphne
>>>
>>> Daphne Ogle-Glenn
>>> Senior Interaction Designer
>>> University of California, Berkeley
>>> Educational Technology Services
>>> daphne at media.berkeley.edu
>>> cell (925)348-4372
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Aaron Zeckoski - Software Architect - http://tinyurl.com/azprofile 
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>

Daphne Ogle-Glenn
Senior Interaction Designer
University of California, Berkeley
Educational Technology Services
daphne at media.berkeley.edu
cell (925)348-4372