What a usability review is, and what it is not

“We reviewed it” can mean three unrelated things. A standards check asks whether the resource meets a requirement: heading structure, contrast, keyboard access, captions, link text, alternative text on images that carry meaning, marked table headers. Much of that can be checked quickly, some of it by an automated scan, and the result is a list measured against a rule.

A task-based usability review asks a different question: can a person do the thing this resource exists for? You ask a small number of people who actually use the service to attempt a real task while someone watches. You learn where they stop, what they expected, what they tried that you did not anticipate, and what they would do next in real life, which is often to give up or to ask a relative.

Community review and co-design ask the third question: what does this resource assume, and what does it cost the people it assumes wrong about? That work belongs to disabled Minnesotans, families, interpreters and culturally specific organizations, invited as advisors and compensated for their expertise. They are not being trained by this, and they are not a focus group brought in to approve a decision already made. They are being asked early enough that the answer can still change something.

All three are worth doing and none of them replaces another. A resource can pass every automated check and still be unusable. It can test beautifully with staff and fail with everyone else. And it can be technically correct and culturally illegible at the same time.