Foregrounding accessibility for user experience design

textI am interested in creating generative tools and techniques for designing accessible user experiences for end users. As a user experience designer, I am working on embracing the web accessibility standards and guidelines and including them from the beginning of the User Experience (UX) design process. My projects are directed at facilitating design students and professionals to understand two things: that the broad concept of web accessibility is important, and how they can embed web accessibility into the UX design process at a very early stage. To do this, I used different media (website, posters and videos etc.) to create awareness and educate designers in an interesting, simple and engaging way. In this report, I will discuss the definition and role of accessible design, identify limitations in existing tools and methods, and demonstrate how future designers might research, prototype, analyze, and implement their designs for all users.Desig

The development of accessibility indicators for distance learning programs

A study was undertaken to explore program policies and practices related to the accessibility of American distance learning courses to qualified students with disabilities. A literature review was conducted, a draft list of accessibility indicators was created, examples of applications of the indicators in existing distance learning programs were collected, the indicators were systematically applied to one distance learning program, input from a variety of distance learning programs was used to further refine the indicators, and these programs were encouraged to adopt the indicators and make use of resources provided by the project. Results of this exploratory work suggest that incorporating accessibility considerations into policies, procedures and communications of a program requires consideration of the unique needs of students, course designers, instructors and evaluators; involves approval and implementation at a variety of administrative levels; and is an ongoing process that may be implemented in incremental steps

CAPTCHA Accessibility Study of Online Forums

The rise of online forums has benefited disabled users, who take advantage of better communications and more inclusion into society. However, even with accessibility laws that are supposed to provide disabled people the same equal access as non-disabled users, sites have erected technical barriers, such as CAPTCHAs, that prevent users from taking full advantage of site capability. This study analyzes 150 online forums to determine if sites use CAPTCHAs, and what types are used. Each variety presents accessibility problems to disabled users and the results of the research show that most sites use text-based CAPTCHAs, but rarely provide alternatives that would help users with visual disabilities. The research presents alternatives that site designers may wish to consider in order to allow more disabled users to access their sites

Techniques for the Publication of Accessible Multimedia Content on the Web

Multimedia has become one of the most important sources of information and communication on the web. However, despite recent technological progress, people with disabilities and the elderly face difficulties accessing multimedia on the web. In some cases, these difficulties are impossible to overcome and are a fundamental cause of digital exclusion. Given the importance of this topic, several investigations on the problems of accessing multimedia resources have been carried out. Some organizations have also proposed certain standards to guide the creation and publication of accessible web content. Nevertheless, the authoring tools used in the process of publishing multimedia on the web do not offer all the accessibility features required. Authoring tools can also be used by people who do not have knowledge about web accessibility or programming, resulting in web publications lacking accessibility. This research proposes 278 novel techniques to guide authors, designers, programmers, and testers in the publication of accessible and inclusive multimedia on the web. These techniques are designed to guarantee the compliance with the recommended success criteria of Authoring Tools Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 of the World Wide Web Consortium. Moreover, these techniques can be used to evaluate the accessibility of the existing authoring tools used to create multimedia for the web. Additionally, we present 80 possible failures that can cause the non-fulfillment of ATAG 2.0. These failures can help authors discern what to avoid and help evaluators check whether particular multimedia is accessible.This work was supported in part by the Study of Accessibility Requirements of Multimedia Content on the Web: Case Study MOOC under Research Project PII-DETRI-2019-03, in part by the EduTech under Project 609785-EPP-1-2019-1-ES-EPPKA2-CBHE-JP, and in part by the Erasmus C Programme of the European Union

The Prevailing Obstacles in Web Accessibility on Three Well-Known Websites for Older People with sight difficulties

Prior research has argued that there is no one best approach to evaluating web accessibility and proposes the adoption of multiple approaches. Following these proposals this research used three different approaches for evaluating accessibility on websites for accessibility to older persons with sight difficulties as there are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. Approached used included: (1) Using automated tools to determine accessibility, which looks at the code of websites to get a general overview of accessibility issues. (2) Manually looking at the design, code and also how it might impact the user. This involved a manual assessment of each of the websites and comparison to the WCAG 2.0 guidelines (3) the third aspect of Web 4 accessibility is looking at the visual, thinking skills or cognition required by the user to access the website. The user testing evaluation method involved participants completing tasks on each of the three websites while participants were being videoed, and asked them to speak aloud at the same time to reflect on accessibility issues. The participants were then asked to complete an exit-interview based on the Principles of Universal Design. The three approaches provided a complete holistic approach to accessing Web accessibility on the three key websites

Exploring WHO communication during the COVID 19 pandemic through the WHO website based on W3C guidelines: accessible for all?

Health crisis situations generate greater attention and dependence on reliable and truthful information from citizens, especially from those organisations that represent authority on the subject, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). In times of global pandemics such as COVID-19, the WHO message “health for all” takes on great communicative importance, especially from the point of view of the prevention of the disease and recommendations for action. Therefore, any communication must be understandable and accessible by all types of people, regardless of their technology, language, culture or disability (physical or mental), according to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), taking on special relevance for public health content. This study analysed whether the WHO is accessible in its digital version for all groups of citizens according to the widely accepted standards in the field of the Internet. The conclusion reached was that not all the information is accessible in accordance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1, which implies that there are groups that are, to some extent, left out, especially affecting the elderly. This study can contribute to the development of proposals and suggest ways in which to improve the accessibility of health content to groups especially vulnerable in this pandemic.This research has received funds from a Plan Propio of University of Malaga and UMA18-FEDERJA-148

Accessibility Lab #1: Audio Cues

An increasingly large number of people with disabilities are using software nowadays. However, much of the software created today is inaccessible to people with disabilities. The WorldWideWeb Consortium (W3C) and many other well-known companies have provided the best practices of creating accessible software. Unfortunately, developers either struggle to sympathize with accessibility issues, do not know the best practices of accessibility design, or both. Hence, there is a need to teach developers about accessibility and how to create accessible software. Unfortunately, accessibility is not widely taught in education. The Accessibility Learning Labs (ALL) were created to address the limitation of readily available, high-quality accessibility educational material. The aim of the labs is to help students understand accessibility issues, increase awareness of the need to create accessible software, and empathize with problems that people with disabilities go through. This research focuses on the first accessibility learning lab utilizing audio cues and teaching students about people with hearing impairments

Bridging the digital divide for hard-to-reach groups

Boeltzig and Pilling identified specific groups of people who typically are not connected to the Internet and examined the circumstances of each - rural, poor, disabled, seniors, and ethnic minorities. They focused on how these groups of people, such as homebound individuals, could benefit most from using online government services. They also identified technical as well as social barriers that limit access. Their recommendations are aimed at both increasing access for these targeted groups and increasing use by individuals in the targeted groups. They also provide valuable recommendations aimed at service or application providers who have a major role in increasing both access and accessibility. The case studies resulted in insights and lessons that are broadly applicable. Based on the case studies, the authors offer recommendations that are practical and serve as useful guides to practitioners and policy makers at all levels of government

Accessibility of mobile applications for tourism - is equal access a reality?

With the increasing use of smartphones in people’s daily lives, mobile accessibility has become a key factor for them. Tourism is one of the sectors that has benefited the most from this growth but has not yet reached its full potential as accessibility has not yet been fully exploited. The main goal of this study is to assess accessibility in mobile applications for the tourism sector. Thus, 14 mobile applications were analyzed, using a manual and automatic methodology through the proposal of an evaluation model divided by quantitative and qualitative requirements, as well as the use of features such as VoiceOver and TalkBack. The results show a high overall number of errors in most quantitative requirements as well as non-compliance with most qualitative requirements. On iPhone 4, “Viseu – Guia da Cidade” was the application with the highest rating, while on Wiko GOA, it was the “JiTT.Travel Funchal” application. In turn, on iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone XR, Nokia 5.1 and OnePlus 6 devices, the best results were achieved by the “Viseu – Guia da Cidade,” “JiTT.Travel Funchal” and “TUR4all” applications. Regarding the accessibility of mobile applications on different versions of the same mobile operating system, it was concluded that there are no differences in their accessibility on both operating systems (iOS and Android). Finally, regarding the accessibility of applications on smartphones with different screen sizes, there are also no differences in their accessibility.This work is financed by the ERDF—European Regional Development Fund through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness and Internationalisation—COMPETE 2020 Programme, and by National Funds through the Portuguese funding agency, FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia within project POCI-01-0145-FEDER-031309 entitled “PromoTourVR-Promoting Tourism Destinations with Multisensory Immersive Media.”info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio