Accessibility-in-Use

A concept describing how well accessibility metrics predict the actual effects that real accessibility problems will have on the quality of interaction as perceived by real users when interacting with real pages for achieving real goals. Unlike traditional conformance testing which evaluates a website as a static resource, accessibility-in-use treats accessibility as a quality of the interaction process itself, accounting for individual user factors such as navigation styles, expertise with assistive technologies, age, onset of disability, and specific abilities. The concept acknowledges that accessibility barriers are subjective and contextual — what blocks one user may go unnoticed by another.