Centering Students with Disabilities: An Accessible User Experience Study of a Library Research Guide

Abstract

Library practitioners can use digital accessibility standards to inform and evaluate accessible design, but how can we ensure online learning objects, such as library research guides, are both accessible and usable for students with disabilities? This is the research question that drove our accessible user experience study. Six undergraduate students with diverse disabilities completed the study. While all participants found our guide to be usable, it was not fully accessible to them. We outline our methodology, including considerations for involving participants with disabilities, and discuss our findings and limitations, so that our readers can consider the use of accessible user experience testing in their work.