Recruit paid keyboard and screen-reader users for three scoped prototype tasks: sign-in, edition comparison, and a fictional gift claim. Ask them to narrate barriers if they wish while an observer records task step, pause duration, recovery path, and severity. Do not simulate disability or treat speed as a proxy for competence.

The hypothesis is that missing labels, weak focus, and repeated navigation will create identifiable delays beyond ordinary form completion. Timing begins only after assistive technology and preferences are configured; participants can pause, skip, or correct the observer’s notes, and qualitative feedback outranks a dramatic stopwatch number.

A responsible report should list browser and assistive-technology versions, task scripts, sample size, barrier locations, severity definitions, and unresolved disagreements. The protocol prioritizes fixing blockers first; it does not convert human access needs into a race or claim conformance from a single session.

A five-second pause can be a design review in miniature.
Read the access standard