Big Brother sets an accessibility task of it's own

Love it or loathe it, Big Brother recently returned to our screens. Those of you who haven't been watching it will probably be wondering why I should be writing about Big Brother in a blog which is primarily about usability and accessibility.

Quite simple really. One of the contestants is blind. Mikey Hughes from Kilwinning in Ayrshire is a radio presenter with RNIB's Insight Radio. Mikey is now featuring heavily in an advertising campaign by the RNIB which features a strapline along the lines of "Mikey will leave the house this summer. Thousands of blind people won't".

Curiously, the RNIB seem to have removed an earlier message on their site which said that Mikey had applied for Big Brother off his own back and would be taking unpaid leave from Insight Radio whilst he was in the house, presumably in case Mikey decided to walk around the house naked or get into fights with other housemates.

Instead, Mikey's time in the house has been enlightening for his fellow housemates. Granted, he has been patronised at times and in one particular instance was given a triangle to play as part of the Big Brother Orchestra, much to his disgust.

Only last week, Big Brother set housemates a new task. This task was to live life as a blind person for half a day. Housemates were paired off and took it in turns to be the blind person, wearing specially adapted goggles whilst the other housemate became their 'guide'.

Whilst some of the housemate failed to see the true purpose of this exercise and instead used it as an excuse to fool around and bash things with their canes, a number of the housemates sought advice from Mikey.

Mikey relayed his experiences both inside and outside of the house and in particular the issues he had with the cooker in the Big Brother house. The cooker in the house has a flat surface, flush with the worktop and Mikey revealed he'd nearly been burnt a few times as a result.

As this discussion continued, the implication of being totally blind finally dawned on the other housemates and Mikey's ability to interact with his environment without the benefit of sight was appreciated and admired.

Often we have the same experience when testing with blind users. Personally, I find screen reader software frustrating and cumbersome to use, so I am always stunned by the ease with which blind users can use the software and adapt to accessibility obstacles thrown in their way. Many of these obstacles are not as we expected. I'm sure that many of the housemates in the Big Brother house thought that the cooker was safe for Mikey because there was no open flame. It turns out that they were wrong.

Sometimes we can also make the wrong assumptions about how disabled users interact with the web. Regularly, we find that what would be considered classic accessibility issues are not accessibility issues at all because users have become so used to these problems that they have developed mechanisms to overcome them.

Only by spending time with disabled users, in a proper test environment, can we learn how they interact with the web, the problems they face and ultimately how to improve their online experience.