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Accessibility Challenges and Tool Features: An IBM Web Developer Perspective
1. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Challenges and
Tool Features: An IBM Web
Developer Perspective
Shari Trewin,
Brian Cragun*, Cal Swart,
Jonathan Brezin, John Richards
IBM Research / *IBM Human
Ability & Accessibility Center
3. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
IBM Human Ability and
Accessibility Center
• Tools, techniques and training
• Unified technology-specific checklists
• Test processes
• Compliance tracking
7. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Information on Requirements
• 68% used IBM’s CI162 checklists and
guidelines,
• 35% referred to W3C Web pages describing
accessibility standards, and
• 14% reported using accessibility information
found via Google searches.
Other external sites included the Section 508
standards, Java and Dojo documentation.
9. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Creating an Accessible Product
Difficult aspects Cited by Time consuming Cited
Design 30% aspects by
Using the test 30% Testing 30%
tools Technology 21%
Finding 27% workarounds
workarounds Retrofitting 18%
Making time/ 21% Setup 12%
prioritizing False positives 12%
Understanding 12% Cross-browser 9%
requirements support
10. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Limiting Factors
• 78% wanted to do more on accessibility
but were limited by:
– Lack of time (48%)
– Limitations in the technology (30%)
– Lack of knowledge (15%)
– Budget (15%)
– Conflicts with other requirements (11%)
11. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Testing is Still Too Hard
“Running [assistive
technology] and [test tool]
took the most time. Any
coding done for
accessibility was more
straightforward than using
the tools.”
12. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Trouble Using AT
“The screen reader behavior was
not entirely well-defined and
Assistive Technology
sometimes inconsistent. For
Browser example, there were instances
where it read twice and sometimes
did not read at all (without
Web apparent reason).”
App
13. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Hard to Pinpoint Problems
AT
“we don’t even know
Browser
if it is the browser, App
Flash, or it is the
technology that we
are using is having
the problem” Application
state
Widgets
User-generated
content
Technologies 3rd party
Templates components
14. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Accessibility is a Moving
Target
“[test tool and assistive technology] don't always work as well
as they should. [assistive technology] does not yet take into
account all the latest WAI-ARIA roles and specifications that
we must follow. It can also be buggy and read things off
incorrectly. [test tool] reports errors that are sometimes
ambiguous and/or unnecessary.”
15. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
What Do Developers Want?
Suggested features:
– List of automatically detected problems
– Explanation of each problem observed
– Ability to pinpoint errors
– Visualization of experience of user with a disability
– Tight integration with development environment
– Checklist of manual checks
– Example solutions
– Ability to automatically test all possible states
– Ability to run a predefined interaction sequence
– Indication of problem severity
22. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Other Suggestions
“would like a tool that would suggest adding
ARIA roles and appropriate properties to html
tags inside of [development environment]”
“I would like to see a mapping tool that would
map out your site based on the navigation of
a person using accessibility tools. So we
would check what they are reading and if they
get where they need.”
23. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Caveats
• Small sample
• Not a representative sample
– of RIA developers, or IBMers
• Accessibility expertise was self-reported
• Under-reporting of information-finding
problems
24. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Test Tools
• Developers want
– more usable tools
– list of problems and GOOD explanation
– avoid false positives
– ability to pinpoint errors
– more automation
• … not dynamic support features?
25. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Number of reponses
Visualize User Experience
15
10 expert
intermediate
5 novice
0
no maybe yes important essential
Value of this feature
“ … more useful than a product that tries to magically find problems.”
“… needs to be easy though. If this is extremely difficult to configure
or perform most individuals won't do it or will perform the test too
late.”
26. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Enhance Understanding
Highlight problems
Suggest logical
sequence of steps
Offers solutions
Shows user’s Describes
view what to check
27. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Accessibility Infrastructure
• Workarounds are a major source of difficulty
• Conforming to a standard should be sufficient
• Need to work towards consistent, complete
cross-browser implementations of standards
• Invest in accessible widget libraries and
platforms
28. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Main Findings
Tools are essential, but …
– startup cost for testing is significant
– Problem understanding is vital
– false positives are a big problem
– can’t pinpoint source of the problem
29. IBM Research: Accessibility Tools
Research Topics
• Greater automation of accessibility tests
• Ways to develop expertise through
using the tools
• Predict/simulate how assistive
technologies will behave
• Simple visualizations
• Investigate false positives