Accessibility Poker – Nothing is fixed

This is a friendly reminder, that all stories with George are fiction.

The story so far

In the previous episode Polly asked George for help with tickets from blind persons. The solution was Accessibility Poker using Planning Poker cards.

The steps so far

“Hi George.”
“Hi Polly, how are things going?”

“In the meeting right after our last call, my team started to use Accessibility Poker. They added Accessibility Points to the accessibility tickets. Then tickets with the highest number of Accessibility Points were put on the top of the backlog.

During the  a table was made to assign the same number of Accessibility Points to tickets with similar problems for blind persons.

Also,  the team decided, that the new user stories could not have actions with more than 8 Accessibility Points.

A few months ago, most customers were fashion companies. At the moment a lot of households are buying the gloves. This means that more blind people are buying our product. It really helps them.”

“Polly, you did a great job.”
“My team is great.”

“So, this problem is solved?”
“There is something else.”

The results so far

“What bothers you, Polly?”
“The sales went up. We had to adjust the ordering process to ship the haptic gloves abroad. At the moment there are two actions with 8 Accessibility Points: select shipping and verifying that the user is a human being.”

“So, you solved the picture recognition problem for the blind people?”
“Yes. The financial team really needs this verification.”

In our last call I told you that 70 percent  of the orders were stopped at the last moment. This used to be 20 percent. After fixing the picture problem it dropped to 50 percent.

What did we miss?”

The results so strange

“Polly, I like to tell you a story. First I need some information from you. What is your hobby?”
“My husband and I like to run.”

“Let me think.

Imagine that the two of you are on holidays. You had a busy day. There is still enough energy left over for one and a half hour run.

There is a sign to a waterfall. 3 quarters of an hour to run to this place, take a short break, and run back. It is a nice way to end a tiresome day.”

The signs are easy to follow. they point to a small town. After a few crossings, you notice that there are no signs any more. Several times you ask directions and finally the two of you leave the town.

Luckily the signs to the waterfall are shown again. Then the sign points to a new town. You have run 1 hour. What do you do, Polly?”

“At that moment we have already run for 1 hour. We would walk back. This way I hope that we have enough energy to get back.”

“What is the difference between the first and second town?”
“Both towns seem to cost the same energy to run through, but the second one is just too much.”

The numbers so strange

“Polly,  the described towns are the page to select the shipping and the page to verify that you are a human being. Both pages have 8 Accessibility Points. According to your entry criteria this should not be a problem?”

“You mean that the verification page cost too much energy, but this is not supported by the numbers. Then the percentage of missed sales would be like 70 percent instead of 50 percent.

I talked about it with the team. And we could not figure out what happened.”

The numbers so moving

“That is a good observation. Let me continue with the story.
Would you try to run again to the waterfall the next day?”

“Yes, of course we could try it again?”
“This time it takes 3 quarters of an hour to run to the second town.
Are you entering this town?”
“No, this takes still too much time.”

“After 3 attempts, it took you 20 minutes to reach the second town.
Are you entering the town?
“I think so.

Wait. You are telling me, that blind people are memorising the shipping page until they have enough energy left over to fill in the verification page.

This means that the Accessibility Points of a page is not always 8.
It is not fixed.

Blind people do several attempts to buy our product. They really want to buy it. We don’t lose all customers after the first failed attempt.

The Accessibility Points mentioned in the tickets are actually Accessibility Points for the first attempt. It looks like we need to write down accessibility points for all attempts.

That is even more difficult to estimate. This is more administration than I wished for.”

The focus so moving

“Polly, what is the minimal administration for Accessibility Points?”
“I would say: one field”.

“If there is only one field for Accessibility Points, what else could be changed?”
“There is at most one action with 8 Accessibility Points in a user story. And now I can explain it!”

“It is 9 o’clock. I have to go, Polly.”
“Before you leave, thanks George.”
“You are welcome, Polly.”

“Goodbye George.”
“Goodbye Polly.”

The focus so difficult

“Hi, Polly, how was your call with George?”
“It was refreshing, John.”

“Did we use Accessibility Poker in the wrong way?”
“It is something different.”

To be continued.