Accessibility of High-Fidelity Prototyping Tools
Abstrak
High-fidelity prototyping tools are used by software designers and developers to iron out interface details without full implementation. However, the lack of visual accessibility in these tools creates a barrier for designers who may use screen readers, such as those who are vision impaired. We assessed conformance of four prototyping tools (Sketch, Adobe XD, Balsamiq, UXPin) with accessibility guidelines, using two screen readers (Narrator and VoiceOver), focusing our analysis on GUI element accessibility and critical workflows used to create prototypes. We found few tools were fully accessible, with 45.9% of GUI elements meeting accessibility criteria (34.2% partially supported accessibility, 19.9% not supporting accessibility). Accessibility issues stymied efforts to create prototypes using screen readers. Though no screen reader-tool pairs were completely accessible, the most accessible pairs were VoiceOver-Sketch, VoiceOver-Balsamiq, and Narrator-Balsamiq. We recommend prioritizing improved accessibility for input and control instruction, alternative text, focus order, canvas element properties, and keyboard operations.
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João Ricardo dos S. Rosa N. M. Valentim
26 Oktober 2020
The use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can be an important ally in improving the quality of life of Visually Impaired People (VIP) because they provide greater independence in the performance of their daily tasks. During the development process of ICTs for VIP, the concepts of Accessibility, Usability, and User eXperience (UX) are significant because they can positively influence the system's quality. Concerning these concepts, some improvements can be considered already at the design stage, such as screen size, button format, color density, among others. However, not all designers consider Accessibility, Usability, and UX concepts when designing ICT for VIP. To identify and characterize which design technologies of Accessibility, Usability, and UX have been proposed in the literature, we performed a Systematic Mapping Study (SMS). We identified a total of 23 technologies. The analysis from these technologies showed that the majority are destined for mobile applications. Besides, some design technologies only address the concept of Accessibility, and only one technology considered the concepts of Accessibility, Usability, and UX together. To support professionals, students, and researchers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Software Engineering (SE), this SMS presents a set of Accessibility, Usability, and UX design technologies, which can be used in the initial phases of the ICT development process for VIP.
E. J. Edwards Isabela Figueira Joshua Garcia + 4 lainnya
11 Mei 2024
Scholars have investigated numerous barriers to accessible software development tools and processes for Blind and Low Vision (BLV) developers. However, the research community has yet to study the accessibility of software development meetings, which are known to play a crucial role in software development practice. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 BLV software professionals about software development meeting accessibility. We found four key themes related to in-person and remote software development meetings: (1) participants observed that certain meeting activities and software tools used in meetings were inaccessible, (2) participants performed additional labor in order to make meetings accessible, (3) participants avoided disclosing their disability during meetings due to fear of career repercussions, (4) participants suggested technical, social and organizational solutions for accessible meetings, including developing their own solutions. We suggest recommendations and design implications for future accessible software development meetings including technical and policy-driven solutions.
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Crystal Lee Arvind Satyanarayan Alan Lundgard + 3 lainnya
10 Mei 2022
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Scott Reitherman Michael Lawrence Barnett Maulishree Pandey + 2 lainnya
22 Oktober 2022
COVID-19 accelerated the trend toward remote software development, increasing the need for tightly-coupled synchronous collaboration. Existing tools and practices impose high coordination overhead on blind or visually impaired (BVI) developers, impeding their abilities to collaborate effectively, compromising their agency, and limiting their contribution. To make remote collaboration more accessible, we created CodeWalk, a set of features added to Microsoft’s Live Share VS Code extension, for synchronous code review and refactoring. We chose design criteria to ease the coordination burden felt by BVI developers by conveying sighted colleagues’ navigation and edit actions via sound effects and speech. We evaluated our design in a within-subjects experiment with 10 BVI developers. Our results show that CodeWalk streamlines the dialogue required to refer to shared workspace locations, enabling participants to spend more time contributing to coding tasks. This design offers a path towards enabling BVI and sighted developers to collaborate on more equal terms.
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