Test Partners, digital agencies and a wide range of corporates, have announced involvement in Pottermore’s official Patronus experience, which allows visitors to J.K. Rowling’s Pottermore.com to discover their Patronus. Test Partners was responsible for ensuring that the Patronus experience would be accessible to visually impaired users.

Discovering your Patronus

Pottermore visitors taking part in the online experience make a series of choices, based on a set of cryptic prompts written by J.K. Rowling, and then discover which animal is their Patronus – a magical protector from harm or evil.

“We spent two months helping Pottermore develop an online experience that delivered a superior experience for visually impaired people,” said Paul Crichton, Test Partners’ Head of Accessibility and Digital Inclusion.

Making the experience accessible

“Our brief was to ensure that the experience worked well for people with visual impairments and we were determined to maintain the sense of challenge.There is a timed element to the Patronus experience, so we worked with the development team so that information was delivered to visitors with accessibility requirements with just enough time to spare, emulating the experience of non-accessible visitors. I’m pretty proud of what we achieved, and how well it works with the most popular software used by visually impaired people.”

“We’re delighted with the way that Test Partners supported us in making the Patronus experience accessible to the visually impaired,” said Anna Rafferty, Pottermore’s Director of Product, Creative and Content. “This was achieved whilst fully supporting the creative treatment and with a high regard for the experience of pottermore.com visitors.”

Edited from press release by Jordan Platt.