A support for developers implement the accessibility guidelines regarding to web menus

Web pages are composed of elements, such as menus that are responsible for assisting navigation on the website. However, many of the menus are not developed properly, which creates accessibility barriers and hinders access to the contents. This paper aims to present a method for creating accessible menus. Initially, we studied the different types of menus and the accessibility guidelines involving the creation of accessible menus. From the studies, we developed a meta-model that gave rise to AMenu language, where we included all the technical details regarding to accessibility. Then, we developed the AMeG tool to facilitate the use of language. Finally, we conducted a case study with developers, in order to verify the feasibility of the approach, arguing its efficiency and limitations. The results indicate a reduction in efforts to develop accessible web menus, since developers do not have to deal with technical details of accessibility.FAPESP (2013/23966-8

Factors Affecting the Accessibility of IT Artifacts : A Systematic Review

Accessibility awareness and development have improved in the past two decades, but many users still encounter accessibility barriers when using information technology (IT) artifacts (e.g., user interfaces and websites). Current research in information systems and human-computer interaction disciplines explores methods, techniques, and factors affecting the accessibility of IT artifacts for a particular population and provides solutions to address these barriers. However, design realized in one solution should be used to provide accessibility to the widest range of users, which requires an integration of solutions. To identify the factors that cause accessibility barriers and the solutions for users with different needs, a systematic literature review was conducted. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by revealing (1) management- and development-level factors, and (2) user perspective factors affecting accessibility that address different accessibility barriers to different groups of population (based on the International Classification of Functioning by the World Health Organization). Based on these findings, we synthesize and illustrate the factors and solutions that need to be addressed when creating an accessible IT artifact.© 2022 by the Association for Information Systems. Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and full citation on the first page. Copyright for components of this work owned by others than the Association for Information Systems must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists requires prior specific permission and/or fee. Request permission to publish from: AIS Administrative Office, P.O. Box 2712 Atlanta, GA, 30301-2712 Attn: Reprints are via e-mail from [email protected]=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Factors Affecting the Accessibility of IT Artifacts: A Systematic Review

Accessibility awareness and development have improved in the past two decades, but many users still encounter accessibility barriers when using information technology (IT) artifacts (e.g., user interfaces and websites). Current research in information systems and human-computer interaction disciplines explores methods, techniques, and factors affecting the accessibility of IT artifacts for a particular population and provides solutions to address these barriers. However, design realized in one solution should be used to provide accessibility to the widest range of users, which requires an integration of solutions. To identify the factors that cause accessibility barriers and the solutions for users with different needs, a systematic literature review was conducted. This paper contributes to the existing body of knowledge by revealing (1) management- and development-level factors, and (2) user perspective factors affecting accessibility that address different accessibility barriers to different groups of population (based on the International Classification of Functioning by the World Health Organization). Based on these findings, we synthesize and illustrate the factors and solutions that need to be addressed when creating an accessible IT artifact

Accessibility in PC Action/Adventure Games

Segons la Convenció sobre els Drets de les Persones amb Discapacitat, les Tecnologies de la Informació i la Comunicació han de ser accessibles. Per això, l'objectiu de l'estudi és avaluar el grau d'accessibilitat de 50 jocs d'acció/aventura per a PC publicats en els últims 10 anys (2010-2022). Per aconseguir-ho, es va crear una llista de comprovació d'opcions d'accessibilitat en conformitat a les normes, lleis i recomanacions, com les directrius per a videojocs i l'estàndard EN 301 549. El jocs es van seleccionar segons la disponibilitat, franquícies amb diversos títols i popularitat. Cada títol es va avaluar per comprovar si es complien les directrius. Es va calcular un percentatge a partir de la divisió del nombre de directrius d'accessibilitat presents entre les directrius possibles i aplicables. Els resultats revelen que el 44% dels jocs segueixen directrius d'accessibilitat, el 81% inclou directrius per a persones amb discapacitats cognitives, el 44% per a motores i de la parla, el 38% per a les auditives i el 25% per a les visuals. Els jocs examinats no són totalment accessibles, però la majoria compleix amb les directrius cognitives i els nivells bàsics d'accessibilitat. Futures vies d'investigació inclouen avaluacions d'accessibilitat multiplataforma de diferents gèneres i estudis.Según la Convención Internacional sobre los Derechos de las Personas con Discapacidad, las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones deben ser accesibles. Por ello, el objetivo del estudio fue descubrir el grado de accesibilidad de cincuenta juegos de acción/aventura para PC publicados en los últimos doce años (2010-2022). Para lograrlo, se creó una lista de comprobación de opciones y características conforme a las directrices para videojuegos, leyes y normas vigentes, como EN 301 549 en Europa. Los juegos se seleccionaron según la disponibilidad, franquicias con varios títulos y grado de popularidad. Cada título se evaluó para comprobar si se cumplían las directrices vigentes. Se obtuvo un porcentaje de accesibilidad al dividir el número de directrices disponibles entre las posibles y aplicables a cada título. Los resultados revelan que el 44% de los juegos siguen directrices, el 81% incluyen pautas para personas con discapacidades cognitivas, el 44% para las motoras y del habla, el 38% para las auditivas y el 25% para las visuales. Los juegos examinados no son totalmente accesibles, pero la mayoría cumple con directrices de accesibilidad cognitivas y niveles básicos de accesibilidad. Futuras vías de investigación incluyen evaluaciones de accesibilidad multiplataforma de diferentes géneros y estudios.According to the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) must be accessible. For this reason, the objective of this study was to discover the accessibility level of fifty PC action/adventure games released in the last twelve years (2010-2022). To this aim, a checklist of options and features following current guidelines (Game Accessibility Guidelines (GAG) and Xbox Guidelines), laws (Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 from the United States), and standards (European EN 301 549) was created. The games were selected based on availability, iterations, and popularity. They were reviewed and played to verify if the accessibility features were available. An accessibility percentage was obtained by dividing the number of present GAG by the number of possible GAG applicable to each title. The results revealed that 44% of the titles follow guidelines, 81% include guidelines for people with cognitive disabilities, 44% for motor and speech disabilities, 38% for auditory, and 25% for visual. The examined games are not entirely accessible, but most comply with guidelines addressing the needs of people with cognitive disabilities and basic accessibility levels. Further research lines include multiplatform accessibility assessments from different genres, publishers, and studios

Towards Design Theory for Accessible IT Artefacts

Accessibility in the use of information technology (IT) artefacts, such as websites, applications, and user interfaces, means that they are designed in such a way that people with the broadest range of abilities can use them. However, although accessibility is a human right, IT artefacts often remain inaccessible. Aside from the available accessibility guidelines, we need sufficient design theories that explicitly state how accessibility should be addressed and designed to develop accessible IT artefacts for all users. This dissertation summarises four articles that address this problem. These studies are conducted with qualitative approaches that include a narrative literature review, a systematic literature review and a design science method comprising a participatory design and interviews. The first article develops an explaining theory of accessibility to gain an understanding of the construct of accessibility, showing possible variables of human abilities, tasks and contexts and their relationships in IT use. The second article illustrates the factors in management, development, user, and IT artefact features, including the roles and actions that these domains have and how they affect the realisation of accessibility. The other two articles contribute to accessibility guidance to improve and support content creators’ text production and writing process of accessible online text in the web context. The dissertation underscores three key determinants of the knowledge of accessibility: (1) assumptions of users’ abilities; (2) users’ actual needs; and (3) factors in the development chain. The foregoing factors contribute to the knowledge of accessibility and would help researchers, particularly design scientists, form prescriptive knowledge for practitioners to achieve accessible IT artefacts. Thus, researchers could better identify the variables, relationships and affecting factors in human abilities, management, development, content creation, tasks, and contexts that need to be addressed when designing IT artefacts for certain tasks and use contexts.Informaatioteknologia-artefaktien (IT-artefaktien), kuten verkkosivustojen, sovellusten ja käyttöliittymien saavutettavuus tarkoittaa sitä, että ihmiset erilaisine ominaisuuksineen ja kykyineen voivat käyttää niitä. Vaikka saavutettavuus on ihmisoikeus, IT-artefaktit eivät kuitenkaan ole aina saavutettavia. Käytettävissä olevista saavutettavuusohjeista huolimatta tarvitsemme suunnitteluteorioita, jotka ohjaavat IT-artefaktien suunnittelua, jotta niistä tulisi saavutettavia kaikille IT-artefaktin käyttäjille. Tämä väitöskirja on yhteenveto neljästä artikkelista, jotka käsittelevät tätä ongelmaa. Tutkimukset ovat tehty laadullisilla menetelmillä, joihin on sisältynyt narratiivinen kirjallisuuskatsaus, systemaattinen kirjallisuuskatsaus sekä suunnittelutieteellinen menetelmä sisältäen osallistavan suunnittelun ja haastattelut. Ensimmäisessä artikkelissa kehitetään kuvaileva saavutettavuuden teoria, jolla saadaan käsitys saavutettavuuden rakenteesta ja joka näyttää mahdolliset muuttujat ihmisen kyvyissä, tehtävissä ja konteksteissa, sekä niiden väliset suhteet. Toinen artikkeli kuvaa saavutettavuuteen vaikuttavia tekijöitä johtamisen, kehityksen, käyttäjän ja IT-artefaktin ominaisuuksien näkökulmista, mukaan lukien roolit ja toimenpiteet, joita näillä kohteilla on. Kaksi muuta artikkelia kehittävät ohjeistuksen sisällöntuottajien työn tueksi saavutettavan verkkotekstin tuottamiseksi. Väitöskirjassa esitetään kolme ratkaisevaa tekijää saavutettavuuden tietämyksessä: (1) olettamukset käyttäjien kyvyistä (2) käyttäjien todelliset tarpeet ja (3) tekijät kehitysketjussa. Näiden tekijöiden tuntemus auttaa erityisesti suunnittelutieteilijöitä muodostamaan ohjaavaa tietoa ammattilaisille saavutettavien IT-artefaktien saavuttamiseksi. Täten tutkijat voivat paremmin tunnistaa muuttujat, niiden väliset suhteet ja saavutettavuuteen vaikuttavat tekijät, jotka liittyvät käyttäjän kykyihin, johtamiseen, kehittämiseen, sisällöntuottamiseen, tehtäviin ja kontekstiin, kun IT-artefaktia suunnitellaan tiettyä tehtävää ja käyttökontekstia varten.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Towards Usability Guidelines for Mobile Websites and Applications

The market for mobile devices is growing rapidly nowadays. Constant technolog-ical improvements provide great opportunities for the creation of mobile applica-tions. For the success of a mobile application or website, one of the main con-cerns, besides security issues, is usability. Poor usability decreases user produc-tivity and consequently causes loss of users. In order to avoid these problems, usability aspects have to be considered already during the design phase of the ap-plication, e.g. by following predefined usability guidelines. Although usability guidelines for web development are already in place since the 1990s, structured and evaluated usability guidelines for mobile applications can rarely be found in scientific literature. Thus, in this paper we introduce a catalogue of usability guidelines for mobile applications and websites, and subsequently demonstrate their usage by applying them in two case studies: the development of a mobile application and a mobile website

Industry attitudes and behaviour towards web accessibility in general and age-related change in particular and the validation of a virtual third-age simulator for web accessibility training for students and professionals

While the need for web accessibility for people with disabilities is widely accepted, the same visibility does not apply to the accessibility needs of older adults. This research initially explored developer behaviour in terms of how they presented accessibility on their websites as well as their own accessibility practices in terms of presentation of accessibility statements, the mention of accessibility as a selling point to potential clients and homepage accessibility of company websites. Following from this starting point the research focused in on web accessibility for ageing in particular. A questionnaire was developed to explore the differences between developer views of general accessibility and accessibility for older people. The questionnaire findings indicated that ageing is not seen as an accessibility issue by a majority of developers. Awareness of ageing accessibility documentation was also very low, highlighting the need for raising awareness of accessibility practices for ageing. Current age-related documentation developed by the Web Accessibility Initiative was then examined and critiqued. The findings show a tension between the machine-centric Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) and the needs of older people. Examination of guidelines when compared to research-derived findings reveal that the Assistive Technology (AT) centric structure of the documentation does not appropriately highlight accessibility practices in a context that matches the observed behaviour of older people. The documentation also fails to appropriately address the psycho-social ramifications of how older people choose to interact with technology as well as how they identify themselves in relation to any conditions they have which may be considered disabling. The need for a novel, engaging and awareness-raising tool resulted in the development of what is essentially a "Virtual third-age simulator". This ageing simulator is the first to combine multiple impairments in an active simulation and uses eye-tracking technology to increase the fidelity of conditions resulting in partial sightedness. It also allows for developers to view their own web content in addition to the lessons provided using the simulations presented in the software. The simulator was then validated in terms of its ability to raise awareness as well as its ability to affect web industry professionals' intentions towards accessible practices that benefit older people

Accessibility requirements for human-robot interaction for socially assistive robots

Mención Internacional en el título de doctorPrograma de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Informática por la Universidad Carlos III de MadridPresidente: María Ángeles Malfaz Vázquez.- Secretario: Diego Martín de Andrés.- Vocal: Mike Wal