A health app company focused on female health wanted to evaluate compliance with accessibility standards to provide an inclusive experience for all users.
Accessibility evaluation of menstrual and ovulation cycle tracking app
Challenge
To ensure healthcare is equitable and universally accessible, we embarked on a mission to evaluate an app that tracks menstrual and ovulation cycles against the highest accessibility and inclusion benchmarks. Our goal was to measure the app’s conformance to the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), focusing on providing an equal user experience (UX) for all, regardless of disabilities.
Approach
Our approach involved a thorough heuristic evaluation. Researchers familiarized themselves with the app interface and user journeys, then independently completed a scorecard based on WCAG guidelines. The scorecard included assessing the app for perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust accessibility standards. Through multiple walkthroughs of the app’s onboarding and symptom-logging journeys, our team scrutinized every element against our adapted criteria, ensuring a comprehensive evaluation.
Outcome
The evaluation highlighted the company’s commendable strides towards accessible design, notably through text with adequate contrast and the absence of seizure-inducing imagery. However, gaps were evident, such as a lack of accessible text and support for assistive technologies, sporadic explanations of medical terms, and limited compatibility with iOS accessibility settings. These insights point to areas for improvement to achieve full compliance with accessibility standards and reinforce our commitment to making healthcare accessible to all users, regardless of their physical or cognitive abilities.