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

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

Proceedings from NordiCHI 2008 Workshop Sunday October 19, 2008

This paper raises themes that are seen as some of the challenges facing the emerging practice and research field of Human Work Interaction Design. The paper has its offset in the discussions and writings that have been dominant within the IFIP Working Group on Human Work Interaction Design (name HWID) through the last two and half years since the commencement of this Working Group. The paper thus provides an introduction to the theory and empirical evidence that lie behind the combination of empirical work studies and interaction design. It also recommends key topics for future research in Human Work Interaction Design

Closing the Digital Divide: Understanding Organizational Approaches to Digital Accessibility in Higher Education

Digital accessibility practices are becoming standardized in higher education as institutions seek to meet compliance with federal and state equal access laws. Students with disabilities have equal rights to access university programs and services in digital format. The widespread use of assistive technology, artificial intelligence, and content available in digital format brings forth ethical and legal concerns about equal access for individuals with disabilities. While broad approaches to digital accessibility in higher education are in the literature, there is a growing need for more studies to examine comprehensive approaches to digital accessibility across multiple units, disciplines, and the organization\u27s hierarchy. This case study examined individual participant interviews from 14 practitioners in different units and publicly available data to analyze how digital accessibility is addressed at three medium-sized public institutions of higher. During the inductive coding process, five main themes emerged related to implementing digital accessibility across the institutions, how it relates to people, practices, policies, and planning, and the larger body of literature on digital accessibility. The findings show there is no one-size-fits-all approach to digital accessibility. Institutions in higher education are motivated by risk management and compliance. A centralized and coordinated approach led to more organized efforts. Initiatives were largely led from the middle-level hierarchy. The availability of resources and funding affected the effectiveness of implementation efforts. The consistency of communication and uniformity of training affected the adoption of practices. Technology toolkits influenced the adoption of practices. Institutional policies and standards guided practices. Recommendations include prioritizing digital accessibility and student needs by designating a head of accessibility, coordinating efforts across units, centralizing processes, avoiding technology-only solutions, adopting the Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Tool (HECVAT), and enacting an official policy that drives practices, expanding training for faculty, and providing consistent assistive technology support for students. An overall institutional coordinated plan for digital accessibility could lead to consistent and regular communication about policies and procedures and provide for a system of metrics and benchmarks

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

Use of Audit Data to Improve the Supply Chain Performance

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Knowledge Management and Business IntelligenceIn the last decades, globalization and digitalization were two of the main reasons for the increase of complexity in supply chains, altering the industries due to the massive amount of information available. This complexity started to become harmful for the companies that do not understand how to use data and information as their competitive advantage, increasing the risk and costs associated with their processes, and decreasing effectiveness and efficiency. We look for the concept and area of internal auditing and process mining techniques as a solution to revert this situation. While research has focused on different and mostly narrow aspects in these areas and solution-oriented and more practical approaches can be found and applied to a broader environment, a practical solution that incorporates these areas into the supply chain are hard to find. Therefore, following a design science research methodology, this study proposes an iterative framework that consists of a guide for an organization that wants to incorporate new technologies into their processes in the supply chain while making the best out of the massive amount of information available using internal auditing and focus on process mining techniques. The framework provides a chain of steps that can be adapted by the company during the transformational process, guaranteeing a smooth transition away from the traditional systems to a more modern and flexible architecture

Using Scrum to Teach Standards-Based K-12 Computer Science: A Prosepectus for a Master’s Level Methods Class at Buffalo State

Computer Science has been increasingly prevalent in K-12 education in recent decades. Most Americans believe that Computer Science is as important as other skills taught in school; further, parents are putting pressure on districts to offer Computer Science programs (1.1). To meet this demand, many teacher preparation programs are adding Computer Science Education to their offering of degrees. This thesis investigates Agile and Scrum product development as a potential method of Computer Science instruction, explores the standards relevant to a Computer Science teacher, and offers a prospectus for a new Graduate Level Methods class to prepare Computer Science teachers to utilize the Scrum framework in standards-based instruction at the K-12 level (1.3). To create the prospectus, research from peer-reviewed articles, case-studies, and implementation guides relating to the topics of Scrum and Computer Science standards are reviewed. The implementation, validity and importance of Scrum, and its educational variant eduScrum, are compared based on the roles, rituals, and artifacts utilized in each framework. The results justify eduScrum as a valid method for problem-based, constructivist Computer Science instruction (2.10-2.12). The background, validity, and importance of three sets of Computer Science standards (K-12 Computer Science Framework, NYSED, and ISTE) are explored (3.1-3.3). These standards were selected for their relevancy to Computer Science certification in New York State and the support of industry, professionals, and lawmakers. The results justify the inclusion of all three standards as crucial to curriculum in New York State (3.4). The thesis culminates in the creation of a prospectus for the Student Learning Objectives and structure of a Methods of Computer Science Instruction class at the Graduate level (4.1-4.4). The SLO’s are created utilizing Bloom’s taxonomy (4.1). The prospectus recommends Scrum in the creation of Learning Segments utilizing relevant standards, topics, concepts and research literature. The prospectus models Scrum at all levels and is a valid way to teach constructivist, problem-based learning (4.2). More research is needed on the effectiveness of Scrum with low performing students, the use of eduScrum at the K-12 level and the implementation of the prospectus as a class at SUNY/Buffalo State

Custom-built environments for Communities of Online Informal Learning: an exploratory study of tools, structures, and strategies

This qualitative, exploratory study grouped together and explored custom-built environments for communities of online informal learning (COILs) with a special lens on the socio-technical relationship of platform tools, structures, and strategies that lead to social learning. The study was conducted through a three-phase process. First, a list of possible candidate sites was analyzed for appropriate fit based on the defining terms of a custom-built COIL environment. Second, an observational content analysis was implemented on 10 of the sites to aggregate a list of the tools, structures, and strategies used in the sites. Lastly, the same 10 sites and the lists of tools, structures, and strategies were researched through both pre-established codes for sociability, usability, and community-building designs and an open exploratory observation of their uses with a focus on the way these features support COILs. Social learning and informal learning were also purposefully scrutinized while themes regarding personalized learning and sustainability also emerged from the exploration. All design themes were found represented within the sites, as were social learning, informal learning, personalized learning, and efforts toward sustainability

Designing behavior change support systems in the context of knowledge documentation: development of theory and practical implementation

Although innovation and operating efficiently require creating, transferring, and applying knowledge, successful knowledge documentation remains a challenge for organizations. While knowledge management systems support knowledge management activities, the missing link to applying knowledge management relies on human actions and their behaviors. This dissertation extends prior design knowledge about designing Behavior Change Support Systems in the context of knowledge documentation by developing theory and showing practical implementation. Combining technical and psychological models within information systems frameworks based on the principles of abstraction, originality, justification, and benefit, this dissertation draws on design science to propose prescriptive knowledge, for example, in the form of design principles and a specific artifact