Papers
Topics
Authors
Recent
Gemini 2.5 Flash
Gemini 2.5 Flash
119 tokens/sec
GPT-4o
56 tokens/sec
Gemini 2.5 Pro Pro
43 tokens/sec
o3 Pro
6 tokens/sec
GPT-4.1 Pro
47 tokens/sec
DeepSeek R1 via Azure Pro
28 tokens/sec
2000 character limit reached

Exploring the Need of Accessibility Education in the Software Industry: Insights from a Survey of Software Professionals in India (2401.00451v1)

Published 31 Dec 2023 in cs.SE and cs.CY

Abstract: A UserWay study in 2021 indicates that an annual global e-commerce revenue loss of approximately $16 billion can be attributed to inaccessible websites and applications. According to the 2023 WebAIM study, only 3.7% of the world's top one million website homepages are fully accessible. This shows that many software developers use poor coding practices that don't adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This research centers on software professionals and their role in addressing accessibility. This work seeks to understand (a) who within the software development community actively practices accessibility, (b) when and how accessibility is considered in the software development lifecycle, (c) the various challenges encountered in building accessible software, and (d) the resources required by software professionals to enhance product accessibility. Our survey of 269 software professionals from India sheds light on the pressing need for accessibility education within the software industry. A substantial majority (69.9%, N=269) of respondents express the need for training materials, workshops, and bootcamps to enhance their accessibility skills. We present a list of actionable recommendations that can be implemented within the industry to promote accessibility awareness and skills. We also open source our raw data for further research, encouraging continued exploration in this domain.

Definition Search Book Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com
References (25)
  1. 2014. Start with Accessibility - Education & Outreach. https://www.w3.org/WAI/EO/wiki/Start_with_Accessibility
  2. 2018. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Technical Report A/RES/61/106. United Nations.
  3. 2021. 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act (CVAA). https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/21st-century-communications-and-video-accessibility-act-cvaa
  4. 2021. WebAIM: Survey of Web Accessibility Practitioners #3 Results. https://webaim.org/projects/practitionersurvey3/
  5. 2022. 2022 State of Digital Accessibility. https://www.levelaccess.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022_State_of_Digital_Accessibility_Report.pdf
  6. 2023. Information and reservation services of carriers be accessible to individuals with visual, hearing, and other disabilities? https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-382/section-382.43
  7. 2023. Technology Sector in India 2023 Strategic Review. https://nasscom.in/knowledge-center/publications/technology-sector-india-2023-strategic-review
  8. 2023. Web Accessibility | Shaping Europe’s digital future. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/web-accessibility
  9. Proposal for an accessible software development model. In 2020 3rd International Conference of Inclusive Technology and Education (CONTIE). IEEE, Baja California Sur, Mexico, 104–109. https://doi.org/10.1109/CONTIE51334.2020.00028
  10. A systematic analysis of accessibility in computing education research. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM technical symposium on computer science education (SIGCSE ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 107–113. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366843
  11. Integrating Accessibility in a Mobile App Development Course. In Proceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1. ACM, Toronto ON Canada, 1021–1027. https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569825
  12. Department of Higher Education, Government of India. 2021. All India survey on Higher Education 2020-21. https://aishe.gov.in/aishe/viewDocument.action?documentId=322
  13. Pınar ONAY Durdu and Zehra Yerlikaya. 2020. The Perception of Website Accessibility: A Survey of Turkish Software Professionals. AJIT-e 11, 41 (Aug. 2020), 42–71. https://doi.org/10.5824/ajite.2020.02.003.x Number: 41 Publisher: Akademik Bilişim Araştırmaları Derneği.
  14. Yasmine N. El-Glaly. 2020. Teaching Accessibility to Software Engineering Students. In Annual Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, ITiCSE. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366914
  15. Infusing Accessibility into Programming Courses. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Yokohama Japan, 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451625
  16. Teaching Accessibility: A Design Exploration of Faculty Professional Development at Scale. In SIGCSE 2019 - Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287399
  17. The Landscape of Accessibility Skill Set in the Software Industry Positions. In The 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility. ACM, Athens Greece, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3550389
  18. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India. 2016. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPD) Act, 2016.
  19. Why Software is Not Accessible: Technology Professionals’ Perspectives and Challenges. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, Honolulu HI USA, 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3383103
  20. Jonathan Robert Pool. 2023. Accessibility Metatesting: Comparing Nine Testing Tools. In 20th International Web for All Conference. ACM, Austin TX USA, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3587281.3587282
  21. Web accessibility as a side effect. In Proceedings of the 14th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility. ACM, Boulder Colorado USA, 79–86. https://doi.org/10.1145/2384916.2384931
  22. Johnny Saldaña. 2021. The coding manual for qualitative researchers (4e [fourth editiion] ed.). SAGE Publishing Ltd, London [England] ; Thousand Oaks.
  23. Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. 2011. Standard on Web Accessibility. https://www.tbs-sct.canada.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=23601 Last Modified: 2011-08-01.
  24. Exploration on Integrating Accessibility into an AI Course. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, Providence RI USA, 864–870. https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499399
  25. Shunguo Yan and P. G. Ramachandran. 2019. The Current Status of Accessibility in Mobile Apps. ACM Trans. Access. Comput. 12, 1 (Feb. 2019), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1145/3300176
User Edit Pencil Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com
Authors (2)
  1. Parthasarathy P D (2 papers)
  2. Swaroop Joshi (4 papers)
Citations (2)
View on Semantic Scholar

Summary

We haven't generated a summary for this paper yet.

Ai Sparkles Streamline Icon: https://streamlinehq.com Summarize Now