How the Internet Is Changing Everyday

Tasks
Introduction
As the Internet is growing it is increasingly
changing how we do everyday tasks. Tasks
that were once done mostly through
personal interaction, such as banking,
shopping, or communication, can now be
done online—a seemingly simpler and
better alternative. However, this new online
explosion can leave some users behind.
This paper will explore the following topics.
What everyday tasks conducted on the
Internet make life simpler for sighted users?
Have these tasks also become easier for
users who have a visual impairment
(defined here as someone who is blind or
has low vision)? As we increasingly move to
the Internet for everyday tasks, what impact
does this have on users who are visually
impaired; are we creating new barriers or
opening up new avenues by moving the
world online? What features of Web sites
seem to make sites easier to navigate for
users with normal vision but complicate the
site for users who are visually impaired, and
which features make a site easier for users
who are visually impaired but complicate it
for sighted users?
Research Gathering
To expound on these topics, I conducted a
series of interviews with seven users who
are visually impaired and seven users with
normal vision. I asked them the following
questions:
1. What everyday tasks do you now
depend on the Internet for?
2. For each task you identified in
question 1, please answer the following
three questions:
o How did you complete this task

before the Internet?

o Is that task easier or harder because

of the Internet?
o How or why?
 3. What tasks can you no longer do
because of the Internet?
4. What task have you tried in the past
to do on the Internet but gave up after
becoming frustrating because it was too
hard?
I also based this paper on usability tests
and focus groups with IBM's Home Page
Reader (a Web browser for users who are
visually impaired). Much of my firsthand
experience with users navigating the Web
came from my weeks of working with
athletes surfing the Web at the 2000
Sydney Paralympics Games.
Everyday Tasks on the Internet
Based on my research of 14 users, seven
users with normal sight and seven users
who have a visual impairment, I came up
with a list of the top ten everyday tasks
done on the Internet for both groups. The
top ten for each group was very similar.
What everyday tasks do users who have a
visual impairment perform on the Internet?
 10. Investing
9. Entertainment
8. Using a dictionary or other reference
materials
7. Travel Information
6. Banking
5. Reading documents/books online
4. Shopping
3. Checking the weather
2. Reading the news
1. Corresponding/sending email
What everyday tasks do users with normal
vision perform on the Internet?
10. Searching for Jobs
9. Shopping
8. Using a dictionary or other reference
materials
 7. Getting directions
6. Banking
5. Investing/funding reports
4. Paying Bills
3. Checking the weather
2. Reading the news
1. Corresponding/sending email
Further Research into Everyday Tasks
Based on the top ten lists of each user
group and my research, I have elaborated
on the some of the top choices for each
group.
Reading documents
Users who are blind find that being able to
read documents online is crucial to their
everyday lives. Before the Internet, users
were relying primarily on scanning devices
to scan in articles, books and other
materials into their computers. Once they
had the document scanned, they used a
screen reader to read the document to
them. As you can imagine, this two step
process was a bit too cumbersome. Now
users can find books and articles directly
online and read them with the help of a
traditional browser and a screen reader or a
talking Web browser.
Using a dictionary or other reference
materials
Both sighted users and those who are
visually impaired use the Internet daily for
looking up words and other reference
materials. One sighted user said she uses
the Internet rather than a dictionary because
it is so much easier. "With dictionaries you
have to have a very good idea of how a
word is spelled before you look it up. With
the Web you can enter a word misspelled,
and the Web site will prompt you with
various spellings or ask if you meant to spell
a word like this... It's more interactive"
For users with visual impairments, online
resources mean much more freedom. One
user, who is blind, said before the Web he
relied on friends to look things up for him.
Now he does not have to depend on anyone
else for looking up words or finding
information.
Getting directions
More than half of the sighted users said
they used the Web for getting directions.
Before the Internet they said they used
maps or called places to get directions. For
these users, the Web made getting
directions easier. As one user put it, with
online directions you can pinpoint where
you are starting from and where you are
going without having to sort through a
bunch of roads and cities that aren’t relative.
Having a printout of directions narrowed
down to your exact location is a lot easier to
handle in a car than wrestling with a
cumbersome foldout map.
Investing
It seems the ability to look up investment
information and investing has opened up a
lot of doors for both users who are sighted
and who are visually impaired. Before the
Internet, users were pretty much reliant on
their brokers to manage their investments.
Information about investing was not always
up to date because of the ever changing
market. Now users can get real time
information and for a few dollars make their
own investment decisions.
Paying Bills
More and more companies are giving
people the opportunity to pay their bills
online. For many users this has opened up
an opportunity to take better control of their
finances. One user who is blind said that
paying bills online allows him to participate
in the financial running of the household and
not rely on or burden his wife with all the
financial responsibilities. One user who is
sighted said that paying bills online allows
her to pay when she wants to without
waiting on a bill to see how much she owes.
She can go online anytime to see what her
cellular phone bill is.
Banking
From my small survey, it seems that e-
commerce on the Web is very convenient
and important to people's everyday tasks.
For these users, logging online is more
convenient than driving down to the local
bank and interacting with a live teller. Again,
for the user with visual disability it offers
more inclusion in the finances. As with a
sighted user, a person with a vision
impairment can access his/her account right
from a computer at work or home. He/she
can move money around with confidence
that the transaction taking place is exactly
what he/she wants. Most plans allow
customers to perform all routine
transactions, such as account transfers,
balance inquiries, bill payments, and stop-
payment requests... everything but
withdrawing cash (at least for now). Most
authorities on online commerce predict that
16 million households will be banking online
by 2001.
Shopping
Shopping seems to be the area most people
with visual impairments in the survey found
to be the most improved everyday task with
the Internet. Before the Internet, many
people with visual impairments relied on
family or friends to take them shopping. Of
course many felt this was inconvenient
because they had to wait for transportation
and then required the accompanying person
to describe items to them. With many
shopping Web sites, you can do searches
for what you want and find descriptions of
the items before you buy them. You can
even ship the products you order directly to
your doorstep. How much better can it be
that that? However, the Web sites are
limited by how accessible they are; but we
will discuss this a little later.
Checking the weather
Going online to check the weather was very
popular with both sighted and visually
impaired users. Both gave the same
reasoning for choosing the Web as their
source for weather. They like the idea that
you get up to the minute weather when you
want it. You don't have to wait around for a
forecast, and you see (or hear in the case of
visually impaired users) the weather as it
happens. According to a Zona poll on online
activity, checking weather reports is the
fastest growing activity. In the last year, that
activity has grown over six percent.Bermant
Reading the news
Reading the news was also a top choice for
both sighted and visually impaired users.
Their reasoning was very similar to the
reason for using the Web for weather. You
get current news when you want it and
where you want it. Most news Web sites
allow you to customize your page to just
show the news you want.
Communication/email
From my survey, I found that email was by
far the most reported use of the Internet by
both sighted and visually impaired users.
Some experts have estimated the number
of e-mail messages that were sent in the
year 2000 as 6.9 trillion. This is in
agreement with a recent Zona poll of more
that 700 participants about their online
activity; the most popular activity was
sending and receiving emailBermant. For both
groups of users surveyed in my survey, the
reasoning for using email every day was
very consistent. Many cited using email to
keep in touch with family and friends. A few
users mentioned the convenience of
communicating through email with
colleagues in different countries with vastly
different time zones. One user noted that
email is a lot less personal than using the
phone and that sometimes he cannot get as
quick of a response as with a phone call.
But overall the majority of feedback for
email as communication was positive and
the most popular use of the Internet.
New Barriers or New Avenues?
In my research, I wanted to find out the
following: as we increasingly move to the
Internet for everyday tasks, what impact
does this have on users who are blind; are
we creating new barriers for users who are
visually impaired or opening up new
avenues by moving the world online? Every
user who was blind or had a vision
impairment said the Internet has opened up
new opportunities for them and that the
Internet has not decreased their day to day
activity one bit. In fact, the Internet has done
quite the opposite. Many of the users with
visual impairments found the Internet
offered them a lot more freedom. As I
described earlier, most of the users with
visual impairments that I talked to can now
do things (such as shopping, paying bills,
etc.) on their own without the help of a
sighted user. A recent government study
found that nearly half of people with
disabilities say the Internet has significantly
improved their quality of life, compared to
27 percent of people without disabilities.Dubno
However, as you are probably aware and as
I alluded to earlier in the paper, not all Web
sites are accessible to persons with visual
impairments. I have heard numbers saying
the Web is anywhere from 15% to 60%
accessible. With all the millions of Web sites
out there, who really knows for sure? But
one thing is clear the Web is nowhere near
100% accessible. Right now for a Web site
to be accessible, the Web developers had
to have made a conscious effort to include
all users with disabilities in their Web
design. In fact, at times Web developers
seem to do quite the opposite. Some
features of Web sites seem to make sites
easier to navigate for sighted users but
complicate the site for users who are blind. I
then wondered if some features make a site
easier for users who are blind but
complicate it for sighted users. However, I
found no evidence of this.
When the Web first came along, it seemed
to provide equal access to all users with
mostly text Web pages. However, as Web
pages became more complicated and more
visually oriented, the visually impaired users
were left behind. Luckily, Web developers
are becoming more educated about creating
accessible Web sites. With that said, I will
not dwell on pure accessibility. I would like
to point out some features of Web sites that
make a site a problem for the visually
impaired user.
Take for example, the Hotmail compose
screen. If you listen to the page with a
talking Web browser, such as IBM's Home
Page Reader, you will notice immediately all
the redundant links on the page. I had a
chance this past year to work with many
athletes with visual impairments at the
Paralympic games in Australia. By far, no
matter what country the person was from,
the choice for email was Hotmail. They
asked very reasonable questions as I
helped them through the pages. For
example: "Why is it asking me to send the
email when I have written it yet?" That was
a very good question. (See highlighted
portion of screen grabs below.) As a sighted
user I could see that it was just giving me
several buttons to choose from on the
screen to send my email. To the user who
was blind listening to the page, the option to
send when she hadn't even written the
email made no sense. I think this is just one
example of how the Web author needs to
understand what all users' experiences will
be when they come to the Web site.
Hotmail Page in Netscape

Hotmail Page in Home Page Reader

Another example of a feature that helps
sighted users but is annoying to users who
are visually impaired is the repeated
navigation on every Web page. I'm not
suggesting taking out the repetitive
navigation, especially if you are following a
template. The repeating navigation is
actually very helpful to a person with a
cognitive disability. However, you can give
the option of skipping over the navigation,
so a person accessing the Web pages with
a screen reader or talking Web browser
does not have to hear the same information
continuously repeated. An example of this
skip navigation can be found at
www.ibm.com/able.

For a code example of how to add skip

navigation to your site, go to
www.ibm.com/able/skip.html.
Conclusion
Through my interviews with users who are
blind or have low vision and sighted users,
I've concluded that the Internet has made
life easier for most everyone. Persons who
are blind or have low vision now have more
freedom to do tasks (shopping, banking,
paying bills and looking up information) that
they normally would have depended on a
sighted person to assist them with. Persons
who are sighted also enjoy a lot more
independence with the Internet. They are
doing their own investment research,
trading stocks, and banking all online.
Looking up the news and weather were hot
everyday tasks for both sighted and visually
impaired people. However, sending email
was by the far the most popular everyday
use of the Internet today. What does all this
mean? Our everyday lives are changing as
the Internet grows. As we find more tasks
convenient and easier to do on the Internet,
the more likely we are to depend on the
Internet for this task. Does that mean that
shopping at stores, phone calls, televisions,
newspapers, etc. will disappear from the
scene? Well, that's probably not the case.
However, it does mean that we need to
think more carefully about our audiences
when developing Web pages. After all, we
do not want to keep people from their
everyday tasks.
References & Resources
Bermant, Charles. "Net Becomes Everyday
Tool." PC World, March 2, 2000.
Dubno, Daniel. "Access to All." CBC