Cognitive walkthrough is an effective method for evaluating usability and accessibility. Compared to other methods, it is easy, effective and cheap to perform.

Lack of digital accessibility and poor usability are costly due to inefficient use, training and support costs. It is also not cost-effective to correct the deficiencies once the service has been launched.

The cognitive walkthrough gives you:

• Concrete feedback on usability, accessibility and design
• Suggestions on how you can make your service better
• Help identify potential problems in all phases of the development process
• Insights into how to conduct work with accessibility and usability in a structured way

The development team's preparation

1. Get someone to assess your current service accessibility level using a WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) assessment tool of your choice. Use this report as a way of understanding the technical debt that might exist.
2. Provide a link to the prototype or test environment to the users you want to try your service on.
3. Book an appointment for a review, on-site/hybrid/distance with users that are new to your service or might have been in contact with your support for accessibility reasons

Implementation

The development team and some users of your choice meet and together go through the service step by step at a leisurely pace.

Make an effort to review each step from a usability and accessibility perspective and based on current requirements, guidelines and recommendations.

Compile a report with an action plan.

Celebrate that you have started working on accessibility and usability, which will lead to better results for your service!

Contributed by The Swedish Employment Agency