The Custom Interview Wizard allows you to fully complete and report on your Web site or Software usability and/or corporate guidelines. The Custom Interview Wizard provides the  interface necessary to produce complete reports on your sites compliance with usability standards or any other guideline. This wizard is part of the "Acc" Family of Products.

Custom Interview Development and Usability Integration into your document Authoring or Test Management System

• Need for the Solution
• Solution Highlights
• Using the XML Question Definition File
• Extend your Process

Overview of the need for this Solution
When testing Web pages, Software, or any User Interface for accessibility or usability it may be necessary for you to implement custom testing. Regardless of the standard which is the baseline for the test, there will be items that cannot be tested programmatically, and there will be those checks that require visual verification by an individual assigned to testing.

Your organization may have developed different sets of guidelines for the release of your interface:

• .Net Accessibility or Usability Guidelines
• Section 508
• WCAG Guidelines
• Software Accessibility Test Management
• Usability Guidelines of any type

Simply put, Usability is the measure of the quality of a user's experience when interacting with a user interface.

There are many costs to poor user interface design, a couple of notable ones for Web sites are:

• Losing potential sales
• Lack of visitors

In order to fully complete the publishing process you need a checklist and reporting system that can integrate with the entire content management or document promotion process. The custom Interview provides an unparalleled questionnaire management system that can integrate fully with any test or content management system.

Some basic Wizard screen Shots can be viewed by following this link. This page will take 66 Seconds over a 28.8 modem to load.

Solution Highlights

• Manage one or many asserters - an asserter is the individual that is stating that a page or group of pages is in compliance with the questions being asked.
• Part of Automated Verification or Pre/Post Automated verification or Repair
• Wizard based interview process
• Answer help - Integrated guidelines for answering the questions either Widows based Help or HTML
• Integrated with automated verification software
• Test any user interface based on any test criteria, public or custom
• Supports XML or Database Answer Storage

Using the XML Question Definition File
The Custom Interview wizard is driven by an XML Question container that holds all of the conditions and options of the testing process.  The XQDF DTD can be found at: http://www.hisoftware.com/public/xqdf.dtd. The Question definition file consists of all the information that you will need to program the interview wizard to function optimally.

General Section
XQDF Header - In the header section you will note the Standard or Guideline that the questions represent and a description of the same.

Interview Subject - You will note the subject of the Accessibility / Usability Interview (Either Opens in a Web Browser or not) This controls the launch of the subject for validation.

Help Method - In this option you will note whether the wizard will use specific system help or help that is located at some location in HTML

Interview Interface and Answer Options Section
Interface - This option allows you to select the "Classic" Interface style or the Grid/Spreadsheet question and answer style.

Caption - You can specify what the Wizard is labeled as with this option. e.g. Usability 101 Wizard

Valid Answers - With this option you can specify which answers are acceptable as valid.

Optional Comments - You can choose to allow the interviewer to add comments to any answer they give.

Questions Section
Question ID - The ID for the Question will be presented as Standard + ID in the wizard.

Question - The Actual text of the question

Answer prompt - The text directly next to the answer drop down. Can be unique for each question.

Default Answer - Optionally you can have a default answer appear with every question

Help Location - Either a File name or a Help Context Number

Storage Section

Database or XML Storage - In this Section you can select whether to store the answers in the database provided or in the XQAF (XML Question Answer File) that allows easy integration into your existing content or test management systems!

The XQAF DTD can be found at: http://www.hisoftware.com/public/xqaf.dtd the XML Question Answer File holds all of the answers and comments if any for the interview.

The System ships with the XQDF Editor, this editor allows easy management of Question Definition Files. To view the XQDF Editor screenshots follow this link. This may take 96 Seconds to load completely over a 28.8 Modem.

The Custom Interview Wizard API
The HiSoftware Custom Interview Wizard has a complete API that allows for the extension and integration of the Entire interview system with your authoring system and or test/content management system.

Printer Friendly Version...