In the Spring of 2021 vaccines were becoming available to help fight the spread of COVID-19. In order to distribute vaccines and meet the demand of people wanting to be vaccinated, technology was being used to help facilitate appointments, share information, and help people understand when they could be eligible to receive the vaccine.
In an effort to support the availability of COVID-19 vaccines, one of iSoftStone’s Fortune 100 clients partnered with 19 state agencies to create State Vaccination Registration sites so people from those states could learn more about vaccination eligibility and register for an appointment to receive a vaccine.
These State Vaccination Registration sites were a critical asset for local health agencies to not only help share accurate information about vaccines, but also track vaccine distribution and support the healthcare needs of the people in those respective states.
How iSoftStone got involved
It was anticipated that the State Vaccination Registration sites would have a high volume of users, especially among people with disabilities. iSoftStone’s Fortune 100 client quickly began building the registration sites and used a vendor to perform accessibility assessments to ensure the sites would be usable by people with disabilities. Approximately 85 bugs or issues were identified.
As an added step of precaution, iSoftStone’s Fortune 100 client asked us to come in and audit some of the assessment work of the other vendor to ensure sites would be released with no accessibility issues. Our initial audits began uncovering accessibility issues not previously identified.
User perspective testing
As a result of iSoftStone's audits, our client took a step back and asked us to perform a full assessment of all 19 State Vaccination Registration sites. Because the project was already underway with a committed delivery date, the timing for performing a full assessment across all the sites was very tight. To accommodate the timeline, iSoftStone inserted a large test team to assess all 19 sites for accessibility. Our flexibility to support the condensed test window, and even working through a weekend to complete the assessment, resulted in the project schedule remaining on track and all 19 sites receiving a full and complete assessment.
iSoftStone’s accessibility test methodology is based on the premise that testing must be done from the perspective of the user and a fundamental aspect of our assessment methodology includes testing through the lens of thirteen disability personas.
Through the execution of our manual and automated test cycles, iSoftStone discovered over 375 accessibility bugs and issues across all the State Vaccination Registration sites – a far larger number of bugs identified in the original vendor’s assessment.
iSoftStone filed all identified bugs and provided detailed reporting that included each bug and its description along with repair recommendations against accessibility compliance standards. Our Fortune 100 client remediated the bugs with their engineering teams and iSoftStone re-assessed to ensure all 19 State Vaccination Registration sites were fully compliant and able to be used by people with disabilities.
Empathy for the user experience
The work iSoftStone performed ensured a successful rollout of all the State Vaccination Registration sites. All sites were accessibly compliant across major platforms, operating systems, and browsers. But iSoftStone also ensured the sites were tested for, and supported, most assistive technologies. A guiding principle for iSoftStone’s accessibility practice is to consider the use of technology and the consumption of digital content from the perspective of all users to ensure their experience is the best experience possible.
Key takeaways
As we look back on this project, there are several takeaways that contributed to its overall success:
- Testing for the user experience is critical. When testing methodologies focus primarily on the code level it is inevitable issues will be missed.
- High quality bug reporting that includes narrated videos demonstrating the issue along with detailed remediation steps makes it easier for engineering teams to repair issues quickly. This requires test teams not only having solid QA disciplines, but also QA teams with a deep level of Subject Matter Expertise around accessibility compliance standards.
- Employing people with disabilities and who use assistive technology on a daily basis strengthens iSoftStone’s accessibility practice by ensuring we truly approach our work from all user perspectives.
If you have any questions about this project or would like to know more about iSoftStone’s accessibility practice, please contact us so we can schedule a time to chat.
