Online payment systems collect information necessary to enable electronic money movements used for but not limited to the purposes of e-commerce purchases, bill payments, person-to-person payments, transferring funds between account holder accounts, and wire transfers. The typical source of funds includes demand deposit accounts (also known as debit accounts) such as a checking or savings account, or a credit account such as a credit card or home equity line of credit. These systems function as a fast and secure electronic alternative to traditional money movement or payment methods such as checks and money orders.
Providers of online payment systems include financial institutions, e-commerce vendors, billers such as utility companies, government agencies, and online payment companies like PayPal, Official Payments, or Visa. A secure online account may or may not be required to use these systems. In addition to functionality, online payment systems provide access to transactions, and in some cases bills as well.
The terms "online payments", "web payments", "online bill payments", and "online transfers" all involve use of a web-based or mobile app interface for the purpose of consumer to business, person to person, or account to account money movements. Although some differences exist, the learning and cognitive disability challenges presented by all of these payment systems are very similar. Therefor, the terms are used synonymously in this paper.
Online payments provide opportunities for people with disabilities to live more independently, however interfaces poorly designed or not designed at all for learning and cognitive disabilities can lead to errant payments and the possibility of significant personal financial hardships. Full accessibility is a necessary part of the solution to prevent unintended, potentially financially burdensome consequences associated with using online payments.
This use case assumes the person understands the 'shopping cart' concept and has successfully navigated to the payment starting point. The vendor payment system was developed with HTML.
Challenges for people with cognitive disabilities in online payments:
While the use of computer technologies could be effective in helping individuals with cognitive disabilities make online payments, the diversity of ability, conditions, and experience of users with cognitive disabilities can create problems in many online payment situations. The sheer number of different types of cognitive disabilities and effects that they can have on users adds to an already complex issue.
Designing accessible web payment systems for users with cognitive disabilities can present some interesting challenges. Certain individuals may have trouble processing language and numbers, deciphering auditory input, and with comprehending spatial orientation. To understand material regarding web payments, a person must be able to identify information and integrate it into meaningful “pieces” or “components”. A person with a brain injury (or other cognitive impairments) may take longer to think and respond to online stimuli. In a web payment system, multiple windows as well as complex or cluttered displays can create distractions and cognitive processing problems. Extended sequential operations can be likewise distracting to those with memory deficit problems. The use of right and left click buttons on a mouse can create difficulties for users with memory, perception or reflex problems.
Individuals with lower literacy may have different reading patterns than high literacy readers when it comes to understanding web payment material; while high literacy readers scan text, people with low literacy may read the text “word for word”. This reading style can create a narrow field of view. Objects and information essential for successfully completing online payments may be missed when they are not directly in the flow of text a person is reading.
Effect of Memory Impairments: Individuals with working memory issues and short term/long term memory issues can have difficulty with navigation and interacting with the basic functionality of an online payment system. They may have trouble remembering information such as a street address or Zip Code, forget to enter required information, or not know where to go next.
Effect of impaired executive function: Individuals with emotional control/self-monitoring issues, task flexibility limitations, planning/organization/execution difficulties, and impaired judgment may find it hard to progress properly through a myriad of tasks in web payments. They may become easily frustrated or give up.
Effect of impaired reasoning: Those having issues with fluid reasoning, mathematical intelligence limitations, seriation/behavioral/comprehension knowledge, and abstraction difficulties may find it hard to recognize patterns and compute numbers in web payment systems.
Effect of attention-related limitations: Persons with selective attention/divided attention issues may have difficulty separating out the important aspects from the irrelevant ones in a web payment transaction. Persons with a limit on sustained attention may not be able to successfully complete all the steps in a web payment transaction.
Effect of impaired language related functions: Individuals with speech perception or speech issues may not be able to recognize or respond intelligently to spoken commands in a web payments system. Those with literacy difficulties may not be able to properly read the instructions for a web payments system, and thus not know what to do.
Effect of impaired literacy related functions: With difficulties in speech perception and/or visual perception, individuals may not be able to read or understand written or spoken commands regarding web payment information. Issues with phoneme processing may make it hard to properly process auditory cues, and cross-model association difficulties may hinder associations of symbols with meanings in a web payment transaction.
Effect of perception-processing limitations: Visual perception (e.g., object recognition, pattern recognition) issues for certain persons may make it difficult to properly perceive the relative locations and meanings of symbols related to web payment. In addition, auditory/speech, motor, and/or tactile perception limitations may hinder use of web payment systems displayed via those modalities.
Effect of reduced knowledge: People with grammar, metaphorical, and/or lexical knowledge limitations could find it hard to interact correctly with web payment systems using those capabilities to provide critical information for understanding the process. Issues in cultural knowledge and base language knowledge (including the use of jargon, idioms, icons, etc.) may also figure into making a web payment properly as intended.
Effect of impaired understanding of behaviors or consciousness: Improper understanding of behavioral norms, social cues, that may be important in successfully completing a web payment may introduce difficulties for certain persons.
It is important in any proposed solutions to make operational tasks (interacting with a web payment system) as transparent as possible in order for people to focus their attentions on the content related functional aspects of the process. The following solutions support general usability of online payment systems for everyone, in addition to assisting those with cognitive disabilities.
It is desirable to allow the user control of as many aspects of the web payment system as possible. For example, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) can be used to provide control of how information is presented. A user interface component can be used to change the CSS definitions for font and font size; change the line height or space between lines of text; increase the size of "clickable" areas; allow for mouse over highlighting of text for easier reading; change the background color of a page; and invert colors and increase contrast on the page. This approach can allow a designer to maintain higher level control over design families while allowing a person to control the presentation to suit their individual needs.
Proposed solutions should address the three categories of human perception:
In particular,
Making a web payment system visually interesting and easy to read can make "listening" to that system difficult (due to the use of graphical spacers and tables, which can disrupt the reading order of related text). The use of database driven text and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can create web payment systems that satisfy the needs of both visual and aural users, while still making it easy to change information and textual data. Additionally, style sheets help to convey context, allow for graceful degradation, and make it available for a greater number of possible browsers to read the code properly.
Access techniques (where necessary) involving using multimedia for interacting with web payment systems should include (at a minimum): captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing. However, a variety of new options for multimedia on the internet have presented themselves.
Cognitive Disabilities and the Web: Where Accessibility and Usability Meet? by The National Center on Disability and Access to Education
Definitions of online payments are at: