Real users with lived experience
Testing led by people who navigate digital experiences in different ways.
Accessibility is experienced by people.
Standards, audits and automated checks can identify issues.
Lived experience testing helps teams understand how those issues affect real people navigating digital experiences every day.
By working with people who use assistive technologies and alternative access methods, teams gain insight that compliance alone cannot provide.
Assistive technology users
Insight from people using screen readers, keyboard navigation and alternative access methods.
Moderated and unmoderated testing
Flexible research formats shaped around participant needs and project goals.
Actionable insights and recommendations
Practical findings that help teams understand impact and decide what to do next.
WHO PARTICIPATES
Real experiences. Real people.
Every person experiences accessibility differently.
Lived experience testing brings together people with different access needs, technologies and perspectives to help teams understand how digital experiences perform in the real world.
Accessibility isn't experienced through guidelines.
People don't experience WCAG success criteria.
They experience websites, applications and services.
They experience whether something is clear, confusing, usable, frustrating, empowering or impossible to complete.
Lived experience testing helps teams understand what accessibility feels like in practice.
STANDARDS
Standards describe what should work.
PEOPLE
People reveal what actually works.
Blind screen reader user
USES
JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver
OFTEN IDENTIFIES
- Navigation issues
- Page structure
- Forms and labelling
- Screen reader flow
Low vision participant
USES
Browser zoom, Magnification software, Custom display settings
OFTEN IDENTIFIES
- Contrast issues
- Layout behaviour
- Responsive design problems
- Visual hierarchy
Neurodivergent participant
USES
Clear structure, Predictable flows, Plain language
OFTEN IDENTIFIES
- Cognitive load
- Unclear instructions
- Complex journeys
- Inconsistent patterns
Keyboard-only user
USES
Keyboard navigation, Focus order, Visible focus states
OFTEN IDENTIFIES
- Focus management
- Interactive components
- Modal behaviour
- Keyboard traps
There’s website compliance and then there’s website usability. Getting feedback directly from people with disability about what a website is like to actually use is the best way to improve and create positive change.
- Morwenna Collett
- Accessibility Expert
- Accessibility Partner at IncluD
Understand accessibility through the people who use it.
Lived brings real user experience into your accessibility work, revealing barriers, strengths and insights that technical assessment alone can't uncover.
Frequently asked questions
What is lived-experience testing?
Testing carried out by people who have disability and use assistive technology in their daily lives, performing real tasks on your website or app in real conditions. It reveals the barriers that automated tools and expert review alone will not find.
Why is lived-experience testing important if we already meet WCAG?
Because compliant is not the same as usable. A site can technically pass WCAG and still be frustrating or unusable for real assistive technology users. Lived testing closes the gap between meeting the standard and genuinely working for people.
What do lived-experience testers actually do?
They complete the tasks your real users need to complete, such as finding information, filling forms and checking out, using their own assistive technology, and report where they got stuck, confused or blocked, and why.
What assistive technologies are covered?
Screen readers such as JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver, keyboard-only navigation, magnification, and other technologies matched to your audience and the journeys being tested. Coverage is scoped to your website or app.
Can we add lived-experience testing to an audit?
Yes, and we recommend it. IncluD Lived pairs naturally with a Verify audit: the audit finds what fails the standard, lived testing shows how the site really performs for the people the standard exists to serve.