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Accessibility of High-Fidelity Prototyping Tools
... Accessibility of web-based programming has been studied in the past in the context of High-fidelity prototyping tools, which were found to have inaccessible graphical user interface (GUI) controls preventing BVI users of these tools from accessing the content in widgets and manipulating them on the prototyping canvas [24]. ...
... For example, Elavski et al. [11] extend web accessibility guidelines to make data visualizations accessible. Similarly, Li et al. use IBM's accessibility checklist --a set of accessibility guidelines derived from web accessibility guidelines, to compensate for the lack of industry standards to examine the accessibility of high-fidelity prototyping tools [24]. Our findings from the web accessibility analysis of Jupyter notebooks contribute to this body of work. ...
Computational notebooks, tools that facilitate storytelling through exploration, data analysis, and information visualization, have become the widely accepted standard in the data science community. These notebooks have been widely adopted through notebook software such as Jupyter, Datalore and Google Colab, both in academia and industry. While there is extensive research to learn how data scientists use computational notebooks, identify their pain points, and enable collaborative data science practices, very little is known about the various accessibility barriers experienced by blind and visually impaired (BVI) users using these notebooks. BVI users are unable to use computational notebook interfaces due to (1) inaccessibility of the interface, (2) common ways in which data is represented in these interfaces, and (3) inability for popular libraries to provide accessible outputs. We perform a large scale systematic analysis of 100000 Jupyter notebooks to identify various accessibility challenges in published notebooks affecting the creation and consumption of these notebooks. Through our findings, we make recommendations to improve accessibility of the artifacts of a notebook, suggest authoring practices, and propose changes to infrastructure to make notebooks accessible. An accessible PDF can be obtained at https://blvi.dev/noteably-inaccessible-paper
... Many of the most well-known game engines, such as Unity or Unreal, require programming to create interaction, which hampers the exploration of these tools by non-programming designers [4]. Unlike game engines, high-fidelity prototyping tools, which will be covered in this article, are digital tools used by designers and software developers to address interface details without a full implementation [20]. ...
This study is framed within information design and focuses on data representation using augmented reality (AR) and its appropriation by designers. The need to investigate no-code AR authoring tools was motivated by the conclusions drawn during the development of “Floating Companies” AR prototype, which highlight the limited access of designers without programming skills to this technology. We intend to identify the limitations of no-code tools regarding development platforms, such as Unity, and represent data with no-code tools. The methodology used entails three phases—the collection and characterization of no-code AR tools; the review of its limitations regarding the development milestones in FLOC; and the proposal of data representation based on no-code tools. The AR tools landscape offers several free platforms which do not require programming skills. It was found that the analyzed tools do not support algorithmic data representation, which forces any representation to be designed manually in a customized way, presenting limitations regarding the amount of data, but also opportunities. The type of project that no-code platforms support falls within the concept of communicative visualization—a type of visualization that does not intend to deeply analyze the data, but rather to communicate and engage public.
... The mockup design (high-fidelity prototype) followed low-fidelity wireframe drawings. High-fidelity prototypes have a user interface like the original product without a full implementation [23]. The mockup uses Google Material Design 3. Since we targeted Indonesian college students in Empathise, we created a Bahasa Indonesia interactive prototype. ...
Digital talent is crucial in the thriving Information Technology (IT) industry. Hence, numerous countries seek digital skills to stay competitive in the current era. In Indonesia, the challenge lies not in quantity but in the readiness of digital talents to enter the professional world. To address this issue, we observed the IT career readiness of fresh graduates and senior students from the Faculty of Computer Science, Universitas Brawijaya. The observation revealed that 82.9% of 70 respondents stated doubts about their career preparations in the IT domain. These doubts stemmed from perceived inadequacy in technical skills, lack of readiness in developing a curriculum vitae and facing job interviews. Given the need for career preparation in the IT domain, we address the development of a platform to assist aspiring IT talents. This study proposes a solution as an IT career preparation application designed using the Design Thinking method The proposed design was tested using the Usability Evaluation, yielding an effectiveness rate of 100% and an efficiency value of 0.08 goals/sec. Furthermore, a satisfaction test was conducted using the SUS questionnaire, resulting in a score of 94.75 (excellent).
... Such work includes studies of current practices that highlight accessibility concerns of existing authoring tools and the authored visuals. For example, features of current authoring tools remain difficult to access using screen readers [24,35,51], and it can be difficult to assess the effect of the visual edits such as color changes [61]. ...
Blind and low vision (BLV) creators use images to communicate with sighted audiences. However, creating or retrieving images is challenging for BLV creators as it is difficult to use authoring tools or assess image search results. Thus, creators limit the types of images they create or recruit sighted collaborators. While text-to-image generation models let creators generate high-fidelity images based on a text description (i.e. prompt), it is difficult to assess the content and quality of generated images. We present GenAssist, a system to make text-to-image generation accessible. Using our interface, creators can verify whether generated image candidates followed the prompt, access additional details in the image not specified in the prompt, and skim a summary of similarities and differences between image candidates. To power the interface, GenAssist uses a large language model to generate visual questions, vision-language models to extract answers, and a large language model to summarize the results. Our study with 12 BLV creators demonstrated that GenAssist enables and simplifies the process of image selection and generation, making visual authoring more accessible to all.
... 4.2.1 Accessibility Guidelines. We adapted a previously-established, comprehensive checklist of potential accessibility violations [30], based on a combination of the WCAG 2.1 [4] and IBM's web content and application accessibility guidelines [2]. This checklist was organized by WCAG 2.1's four principles of Web accessibility and was used as a guide for auditing. ...
Blockchain and crypto-based technologies are a rapidly-growing domain on the cutting edge of web technologies; however, little research has examined their accessibility for users with disabilities. We focused on a specific area of this domain by completing accessibility audits of four major cryptocurrency exchanges and administered a questionnaire to disabled people to understand potential accessibility challenges. Our accessibility audit revealed many severe accessibility violations among each of the major exchange sites. Participants (n = 72, 23 crypto adopters) reported a wide variety of accessibility concerns with cryptocurrency exchanges and using cryptocurrency itself, which presented barriers to access and adoption of these technologies. We discuss the implications for our findings and propose future areas of work in this domain.
... When taking a broader look at accessibility, we fnd that inaccessible design still exists and can be rooted in diferent factors [57], which are related to poor education settings, lack of proper design tools that support accessible design, and inappropriately scoped and budgeted projects [11,36,49,69,[71][72][73]. ...
Teaching accessibility is essential in training technologists and designers. However, the topics of accessibility and disability are vast and intersect with culture (social constructions). Since cultural background is an influential factor in design decisions, which could have implications for accessible design, we wanted to understand whether and how courses at U.S. institutions address the importance of cultural influences when teaching accessibility and disability topics. We surveyed 72 students from U.S. institutions and ran 14 follow-up interviews with students who took technical and non-technical courses. Using reflexive thematic analysis, we found similarities and differences in how technical and non-technical courses approach accessibility teaching. We found a lack of cultural focus in accessibility teaching in the technical courses, which can be improved by adopting teaching approaches from non-technical courses. We also make recommendations to improve course design, such as including people from different cultures and disabilities to help develop courses.
... Multiply the sum of the scores by 2.5 to obtain the overall value of SU [12]. Figure 2 explained that SUS scores have a range of 0 to 100 [13], and a score of 68 is considered to be the average for the SUS. When the SUS score is greater than 68, it is reasonable to assume that the user is pleased with their experience. ...
The pandemic of COVID-19 resulted in the physical shutdown which has now transformed education into an exclusive "online learning" model. Zoom is being used to evaluate the perceived usability as the reference platform. The students find it less collaborative, less interactive, boring, and less collaborative. From this perspective, the Usability of the current online learning platforms is an important factor, particularly because no physical classes are present. The User-Centered Design (UCD) approach was chosen for this study and using the Usability Scale (SUS) method to evaluate the interface. The objective of this study is to analyze user experience, design solutions and evaluate user interfaces that can meet user needs. A pre-survey to evaluate the difficulties of the Zoom application based on user experience, and a post-survey to see if the upgraded design can help the students using the Zoom application for online learning. Then, use the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire approach to measure the system's usability. After the UCD approach was completed, the researcher did a follow-up survey. The results showed that SUS ratings went up to 85.12. As a result, the previously low acceptability ranges have been raised to acceptable. Additionally, the grade scale has been reclassified B. The Zoom program now has more features and is easier to use, and fulfills the students' needs.
... As we kept continuously collecting feedback from the participants, we augmented our mobile bidding platform with new requirements. High-fidelity prototypes are interactive visuals that exhibit various real functionalities, such as navigation and information architecture, of the software at hand [53]. 913 | P a g e www.ijacsa.thesai.org ...
e-Commerce is booming everywhere, and Saudi Arabia is no exception. However, the adoption and prevalence of online mobile auctions (aka m-auction) remain unsatisfying in Saudi Arabia and the MENA region. This paper uncovers the enabling factors and hindering barriers against the use of mobile auctions by online consumers. To this end, a multiphase mixed methods design is applied to acquire an in-depth understanding of online mobile bidding or auctioning attitudes and practices of the Saudi auctioneers and bidders. Initially, an interactive mobile auction app was developed by applying the principles of user-centered agile software development (UCASD) methodology, which incorporated several design iterations based on feedback from 454 real users. The mobile auction requirements were collected using a mix of research methods, including a survey, focus groups, prototyping, and user testing. The UCASD methodology positively influenced the early evidence-based adoption and use of mobile auctions in the Saudi market. Subsequently, three consecutive focus groups were conducted with another 22 participants to induce further insights regarding the antecedents impacting the intention to embrace online auctions using mobile phones. A taxonomy of requirements coupled with thematic analysis of the discussions gave rise to 13 influential factors of mobile auctions, namely risk, quality of products, trust, ubiquity, usefulness, access to valuable products, ease of use, age, social influence, monetary costs, enjoyment, past experience, and facilitating conditions. Our inductive approach resulted in an early technology acceptance model of mobile auctions. We conclude by reflecting on the challenges observed to suggest some practical guidelines to pave the way for other researchers in this promising area to carry out experimental studies to ameliorate the proposed model.
... Another reason for inaccessible design is that digital designers are under-supported with the necessary resources (e.g., education, time, money) to make accessible content [15,49,68,89,92,93,95]. For example, a 2021 large-scale survey of Brazilian mobile developers (872 participants) found less than half had some knowledge on implementing accessibility [48]-even familiarity with accessibility guidelines does not guarantee confdence in accessible design [45]. ...
Digital designers often do not make their work accessible (e.g., websites failing criteria set by the W3C's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), and accessible design research discusses many solutions to address this problem (e.g., teaching accessibility within university design and technical courses). However, prior research in this area typically does not acknowledge whether recommendations and resources to support accessible design are suitable for all digital designers due to different training pathways and job support structures (e.g., large-company vs. rural and self-employed designers or designers who learned their skills outside of formal education settings). We interviewed 20 digital designers from rural and urban areas, as well as working from home and remotely, to understand the challenges they experience in making accessible content within the context of their workplace. We find that job support structures mediate the effectiveness of current accessible design recommendations and resources, and we suggest how to improve accessible design support to meet the needs of under-resourced designers.
... Although accessibility research has grown in the past 24 years [29], inaccessible design remains a concern, likely caused by numerous factors [37], such as inadequate education, inappropriately scoped and budgeted projects, lack of accessibility awareness and experience, and a need for improved design tools or guidelines that support accessible design (see: [2,10,24,34,[39][40][41][42][43]). This lack of access is a serious issue because website inaccessibility is globally prevalent [1,6,19,22,35], with many studies focusing on government websites because they are usually the primary communication platforms to citizens and businesses [3], and typically are under the jurisdiction of accessibility laws. ...
Digital accessibility has become an important topic in the field of HCI, but when looking at accessibility on a global scale, we find that the representation of accessibility research is mostly centered in the Global North with countries that are WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). Our paper explores digital accessibility in Iran, focusing exclusively on its national policies on accessibility. Iran is a non-WEIRD country located in the Global South, with no reports on its digital accessibility status from the Global Initiative for Inclusive Information and Communication Technologies (G3ict). We found that there is not enough focus on accessibility in Iran's regulations and we conclude our paper by recommending directions for improving this situation such as HCI and disability organizations in Iran cooperating with G3ict.
... Microsoft PowerPoint) to high-end professional software (e.g., Adobe XD). We anticipated that prototyping tools are likely not providing enough feature support for users since prior work already found prototyping tools themselves are not made to be accessible [15]. Some prototyping software also supports the use of plug-ins, and there is potential with this approach to ofer accessibility plug-ins (e.g., Adee [8]). ...
Many digital systems are found to be inaccessible and a large part of the issue is that accessibility is not considered early enough in the design process. Digital prototyping tools are a powerful resource for designers to quickly explore both low and high fidelity design mockups during initial stages of product design and development. We evaluated 10 popular prototyping tools to understand their built-in and third-party accessibility features. We found that accessible design support is largely from third-party plug-ins rather than prototyping tools' built-in features, and the availability of accessibility support varies from tool to tool. There is potential to improve accessible design by increasing the potential for accessibility to be consider earlier in the design process.
... İleride bu tip sistemlerin çoklu dil desteklerinin olacağı ve gerçek zamanlı olarak web tabanlı uygulamalarının da bulunacağı öngörülmektedir [12]. Görme engelliler bireyler için özellikle ses temelli GUİ aygıtlarının geliştirilmesine yönelik alt yapı çalışmaları yapılmaktadır [13]. ...
Günümüzde kullanılmakta olan birçok elektronik eşya dokunmatik ekran özellikli bir yapıya sahip olarak kullanıcılara sunulmaktadır. Dokunmatik ve renkli grafik ekranlar ile ürünlerdeki kalite algısı yükseltilirken aynı zamanda işlevselliği de artırılmaktadır. TFT ekranlı ürünlerin kullanımındaki artış ile birlikte maliyetlerde oluşan azalmalar, üreticileri TFT ekranlı ürün üretme konusunda daha çok teşvik etmiştir. Bununla birlikte özellikle gömülü sistemlerde TFT ekranlı ürünlerin AR-GE süreçleri oldukça zahmetlidir. Her ürün için ayrı grafik çalışmaları yapılıyor olması ve bunların gömülü sisteme aktarılması kaynak tüketimindeki verimi düşürmektedir. Bu alandaki yazılımsal AR-GE süreçlerini hızlandırmak için modüler ve kolay kullanıma sahip bir grafiksel kullanıcı ara yüzü (GUI) kütüphanesi kullanmak oldukça avantajlı olmaktadır. Oluşturulan yazılım elektromanyetik uyumluluk, yayınım ve iklimlendirme gibi çeşitli testleri başarıyla geçmiştir. Piyasadaki popüler olarak kullanılan yabancı menşeili alternatif ürünler ile kıyaslandığında ise üretim maliyetleri ve kullanım yeterlilikleri yönünden avantaj sağladığı görülmüştür.
... Web accessibility-related lawsuits are also increasing [52], indicating that more research is required to improve a worsening situation by better supporting web and mobile designers. Some reasons for inaccessibility include: a lack of sufcient education on accessibility in design, limited project time and funds, clients who prioritize other design requests over accessibility, confusing guidelines, and inadequate tools (see: [9,31,37,47,[49][50][51]). Overall, inaccessibility is never usually the result of a single issue but one that can be traced back to several factors falling on a spectrum of intrinsic to extrinsic causes [43], such as a developer's software not warning about accessibility violations (intrinsic) and a company adhering to a culture where the importance of product accessibility is dismissed as being unimportant or too costly (extrinsic). ...
Since prior work has identified that cultural differences influence user design preferences and interaction methods, as well as emphasizing the need to reflect on the appropriateness of popular HCI principles, we believe that it is equally important to apply this inquiry to digital accessibility and how accessibility fits within the design process around the world.
Nos últimos anos, ocorreram mudanças significativas e o acesso à informação cresceu. O presente artigo visa discutir a relação entre design, a acessibilidade e inclusão no contexto do Portal de transparência de Santa Catarina. O objetivo geral é responder à questão: quais são as melhores diretrizes do redesign de interface considerando a acessibilidade? A metodologia utilizada foi revisão integrativa da literatura com análise qualitativa da literatura e, ao longo da discussão, foram apresentados exemplos reais da proposta de redesign. Como resultados, apresenta-se um infográfico acerca dos benefícios do uso das diretrizes envolvidas dentro da acessibilidade. Pode-se concluir que a acessibilidade contribui no conhecimento e torna-se um importante pilar para designers pesquisadores com o acesso da informação para todos de uma forma agradável, intuitiva com desejabilidade, usabilidade e utilidade.
This article is an extended version of our 2018 ASSETS paper entitled, “Incorporating Social Factors in Accessible Design.” In our ASSETS paper, we demonstrated the viability of the Design for Social Accessibility perspective through a series of user-centered workshops with professional designers. With this expanded article, we conducted a follow-up research study with a user-centered design course that examined the use of Design for Social Accessibility Method Cards over a longer design cycle, specifically as the method and cards contributed to a term-long project, rather than just a workshop. We also offer a new analysis on work leading to the development of Design for Social Accessibility, with a focus on how practical considerations in the design process influence how designers engage accessible design. We found that the concrete and real-life scenarios in the Design for Social Accessibility Method Cards helped mediate useful interactions between student designers and deaf and hard-of-hearing users. In addition, we identified how practical choices in investigating strategies for socially accessible design enabled designers to center disabled perspectives. The contributions of this work—when added to the findings of our ASSETS 2018 paper on incorporating social factors—demonstrate the viability of Design for Social Accessibility by providing: (1) empirical data showing that designers can use the Design for Social Accessibility perspective and method cards to generate accessible designs and appropriately engage deaf and hard-of-hearing users to incorporate social considerations; and (2) a summative analysis highlighting practical steps for how designers can use the Design for Social Accessibility perspective and methods cards to create accessible designs.
By focusing on users' abilities rather than disabilities, designers can create interactive systems better matched to those abilities.
Studies on design, disability and phenomenology offer rich insights into how the designed environment is experienced by people with different abilities. In architectural design, this experience is only starting to become recognized as a valuable resource for designers. Considering disability as a particular kind of experience, we report on a focused ethnography of architect Marta Bordas Eddy’s design practice. We analyze how her design practice and outcomes connect with her embodied experience of being a wheelchair user and the role of architecture therein. We interviewed Marta, her sister/co-worker and her life partner/co-habitant, gathered design documents, and analyzed the house she designed for and by herself. Our study highlights how Marta’s embodied experience of being disabled combined with her background informs how she assesses design and establishes distinct architectural qualities. Being a disabled person and a designer enables Marta to detect problems in design in an intuitive body-based manner and think of solutions at the same time. The analysis of Marta’s house moreover raises awareness of architecture’s role in (disabled) people’s lives insofar it can support or impair human capabilities. It challenges prevailing views of what a house for a disabled person looks and is like, and how apparently restricted capabilities can be neutralized by design.
The advent of system-wide accessibility services on mainstream touch-based smartphones has been a major point of inclusion for blind and visually impaired people. Ever since, researchers aimed to improve the accessibility of specific tasks, such text-entry and gestural interaction. However, little work aimed to understand and improve the overall accessibility of these devices in real world settings. In this paper, we present an eight-week long study with five novice blind participants where we seek to understand major concerns, expectations, challenges, barriers, and experiences with smartphones. The study included pre-adoption and weekly interviews, weekly controlled task assessments, and in-the wild system-wide usage. Our results show that mastering these devices is an arduous and long task, confirming the users' initial concerns. We report on accessibility barriers experienced throughout the study, which could not be encountered in task-based laboratorial settings. Finally, we discuss how smartphones are being integrated in everyday activities and highlight the need for better adoption support tools.
The role of prototypes is well established in the field of HCI and Design. A lack of knowledge, however, about the fundamental nature of prototypes still exists. Researchers have attempted to identify different types of prototypes, such as low-vs. high-fidelity prototypes, but these attempts have centered on evaluation rather than support of design exploration. There have also been efforts to provide new ways of thinking about the activity of using prototypes, such as experience prototyping and paper prototyping, but these efforts do not provide a discourse for understanding fundamental characteristics of prototypes. In this article, we propose an anatomy of prototypes as a framework for prototype conceptualization. We view prototypes not only in their role in evaluation but also in their generative role in enabling designers to reflect on their design activities in exploring a design space. We base this framework on the findings of two case studies that reveal two key dimensions: prototypes as filters and prototypes as manifestations. We explain why these two dimensions are important and how this conceptual framework can benefit our field by establishing more solid and systematic knowledge about prototypes and prototyping.
In this paper we analyze the interaction of blind users with Apple touchscreen devices iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, accessible to the visually-impaired thanks to their pre-installed VoiceOver screen reader or magnifier. Specifically, we focus on the gestures offered by VoiceOver to simplify interaction for blind users. A usability inspection of the devices' user interfaces has been performed and integrated with user feedback collected via an online survey taken by 55 totally blind users. Results confirm that VoiceOver makes the Apple devices basically accessible to blind users, but there are still some issues related to usability. Users normally believe that accessibility integrated with VoiceOver is an important innovation, but some operations, such as the writing of long text, take too long or are not comfortable. Results suggest that a multimodal approach on mobile touchscreen devices does not offer a simple and satisfactory interaction paradigm for all and it deserves further investigation. Three possible solutions for improving user interface interaction and offering a simpler and more comfortable experience for blind individuals were proposed to the survey participants, gathering their positive feedback.
Recent advances in touch screen technology have increased the prevalence of touch screens and have prompted a wave of new touch screen-based devices. However, touch screens are still largely inaccessible to blind users, who must adopt error-prone compensatory strategies to use them or find accessible alternatives. This inaccessibility is due to interaction techniques that require the user to visually locate objects on the screen. To address this problem, we introduce Slide Rule, a set of audio- based multi-touch interaction techniques that enable blind users to access touch screen applications. We describe the design of Slide Rule, our interaction techniques, and a user study in which 10 blind people used Slide Rule and a button-based Pocket PC screen reader. Results show that Slide Rule was significantly faster than the button-based system, and was preferred by 7 of 10 users. However, users made more errors when using Slide Rule than when using the more familiar button-based system.
In two experiments, each using a different product (either a CD-ROM based eleclxonic book or an interactive voice response system), we compared the usability problems uncovered using low- and high-fidelity prototypes. One group of subjects performed a series of tasks using a paperbased low-fidelity prototype, while another performed the same tasks using either a high-fidelity prototype or the actual product. In both experiments, substantially the same sets of usability problems were found in the low- and highfidelity conditions. Moreover, there was a significant correlation between the proportion of subjects detecting particular problems in the low- and high-fidelity groups. In other words, individual problems were detected by a similar proportion of subjects in both the low- and high-fidelity conditions. We conclude that the use of low-fidelity prototypes can be effective throughout the product development cycle, not just during the initial stages of design.
Accessibility and usability are well established concepts for user interfaces and websites. Usability is precisely defined, but there are different approaches to accessibility. In addition, different possible relationships could exist between problems encountered by disabled and non-disabled users, yet little empirical data have been gathered on this question. Guidelines for accessibility and usability of websites provide ratings of the importance of problems for users, yet little empirical data have been gathered to validate these ratings. A study investigated the accessibility of two websites with 6 disabled (blind) and 6 non-disabled (sighted) people. Problems encountered by the two groups comprised two intersecting sets, with approximately 15% overlap. For one of the two websites, blind people rated problems significantly more severely than sighted people. There was high agreement between participants as to the severity of problems, and agreement between participants and researchers. However, there was no significant agreement between either participants or researchers and the importance/priority ratings provided by accessibility and usability guidelines. Practical and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.
This paper describes a comparative study between the usage of low-fidelity and a high-fidelity prototyping for the creation of multi-user multi-touch interfaces. The multi-touch interface presented in this paper allows users to collaboratively search for existing multimedia content, create new compositions with this content, and finally integrate it in a layout for presenting it. The study we conducted consists of a series of parallel user tests using both low-fidelity and high-fidelity prototypes to inform the design of the multi-touch interface. Based on a comparison of the two test sessions, we found that one should be cautious in generalising high-level user interactions from a low towards a high-fidelity prototype. However, the low-fidelity prototype approach presented proved to be very valuable to generate design ideas concerning both high and low-level user interactions on a multi-touch tabletop.
The concept of Universal Usability is an important one, and requires researchers and designers to consider all potential user groups of systems, including minority groups such as people with disabilities. Unlike ethnic minorities and economically disadvantaged people, however, including people with disabilities may have a major impacts on the design of the interfaces and functionality of systems. This paper will thus discuss the extension of User Centred Design into the development of a new paradigm: "User Sensitive Inclusive Design" which enables designers to include people with disabilities within the potential user group in an effective and efficient way.
The role of prototypes is well established in the field of HCI and Design. A lack of knowledge, however, about the fundamental nature of prototypes still exists. Researchers have attempted to identify different types of prototypes, such as low- vs. high-fidelity prototypes, but these attempts have centered on evaluation rather than support of design exploration. There have also been efforts to provide new ways of thinking about the activity of using prototypes, such as experience prototyping and paper prototyping, but these efforts do not provide a discourse for understanding fundamental characteristics of prototypes. In this article, we propose an anatomy of prototypes as a framework for prototype conceptualization. We view prototypes not only in their role in evaluation but also in their generative role in enabling designers to reflect on their design activities in exploring a design space. We base this framework on the findings of two case studies that reveal two key dimensions: prototypes as filters and prototypes as manifestations. We explain why these two dimensions are important and how this conceptual framework can benefit our field by establishing more solid and systematic knowledge about prototypes and prototyping.
Using Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a random sample of websites from 1997-2002 were retrospectively analyzed for effects that technology has on accessibility for persons with disabilities and compared to government websites. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Tukey's HSD were used to determine differences among years. Random websites become progressively inaccessible through the years (p<0.0001) [as shown by increasing Web Accessibility Barrier (WAB) scores], while complexity of the websites increased through the years (p<0.0001). Pear son's correlation (r) was performed to correlate accessibility and complexity: r=0.463 (p<0.01). Government websites remain accessible while increasing in complexity: r=0.14 (p<0.041). It is concluded that increasing complexity, oftentimes caused by adding new technology to a Web page, inadvertently contributes to increasing barriers to accessibility for persons with disabilities.
Accessibility barriers in mobile applications (apps) can make it challenging for people who have impairments or use assistive technology to use those apps. Ross et al.’s epidemiology-inspired framework emphasizes that a wide variety of factors may influence an app's accessibility and presents large-scale analysis as a powerful tool for understanding the prevalence of accessibility barriers (i.e., inaccessibility diseases ). Drawing on this framework, we performed a large-scale analysis of free Android apps, exploring the frequency of accessibility barriers and factors that may have contributed to barrier prevalence. We tested a population of 9,999 apps for seven accessibility barriers: few TalkBack-focusable elements, missing labels, duplicate labels, uninformative labels, editable TextViews with contentDescription , fully overlapping clickable elements, and undersized elements. We began by measuring the prevalence of each accessibility barrier across all relevant element classes and apps. Missing labels and undersized elements were the most prevalent barriers. As a measure of the spread of barriers across apps, we assessed the five most reused classes of elements for missing labels and undersized elements. The Image Button class was among the most barrier-prone of the high reuse element classes; 53% of Image Button elements were missing labels and 40% were undersized. We also investigated factors that may have contributed to the high barrier prevalence in certain classes of elements, selecting examples based on prior knowledge, our analyses, and metrics of reuse and barrier-proneness. These case studies explore: (1) how the few TalkBack-focusable elements accessibility barrier relates to app category (e.g., Education, Entertainment) and the tools used to implement an app, (2) the prevalence of label-based barriers in image-based buttons, (3) design patterns that affect the labeling and size of Radio Buttons and Checkboxes, and (4) accessibility implications of the sizing of third-party plug-in elements. Our work characterizes the current state of Android accessibility, suggests improvements to the app ecosystem, and demonstrates analysis techniques that can be applied in further app accessibility assessments.
My research explores large-scale analysis of mobile application accessibility, with a goal of expanding the types of accessibility barriers for which applications are tested and the ways in which results are presented. I am basing my research in a novel epidemiology-inspired framework that we developed for structuring the examination of mobile application accessibility. It frames accessibility as a product of diverse factors within the rich ecosystem in which applications are created, maintained, and used. The framework proposes large-scale analysis as a method for understanding the state of accessibility. My completed work applies this framework by conducting a large-scale analysis of an existing dataset of Android applications, assessing them for label-based accessibility barriers on image-based buttons. My future work will extend this research to analyze current applications at scale and expand the accessibility barriers that are tested for.
Blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals are increasingly creating visual content online; however, there is a lack of tools that allow these individuals to modify the visual attributes of the content and verify the validity of those modifications. In this poster paper, we discuss the design and preliminary exploration of a multi-modal and accessible approach for BVI developers to edit visual layouts of webpages while maintaining visual aesthetics.
This study evaluated the status of accessibility in mobile apps by investigating the graphical user interface (GUI) structures and conformance to accessibility guidelines of 479 Android apps in 23 business categories from Google Play. An automated tool, IBM Mobile Accessibility Checker (MAC), was used to identify the accessibility issues, which were categorized as a violation (V), potential violation (PV), or warning (W). The results showed 94.8%, 97.5%, and 66.4% of apps studied contained issues related to V, PV, or W, respectively. Five widget categories (TextView, ImageView, View, Button, and ImageButton) were used to create 92% of the total number of the GUI elements and caused 89%, 78%, and 86% of V, PV, and W, respectively. These accessibility issues were mainly caused by lack of element focus, missing element description, low text color contrast, lack of sufficient spacing between elements, and less than minimum sizes of text fonts and elements. Together, these accessibility issues accounted for 97.0%, 77.8%, and 94.5% of V, PV, and W, respectively.
This study proposed coverage measures to estimate the percentage of accessibility issues identified by an automated tool. The result showed that MAC, on average, identified about 67% of accessibility issues in mobile apps.
Two new accessibility conformance measures were proposed in this study: inaccessible element rate (IAER) and accessibility issue rate (AIR). IAER estimates the percentage of GUI elements that are inaccessible. AIR calculates the percentage of the actual number of accessibility issues relative to the maximum number of accessibility issues. Average IAER and AIR scores were 27.3%, 19.9%, 6.3% and 20.7%, 15.0%, 5.4% for V, PV, and W, respectively, for the studied apps. The IAER score showed approximately 30% of the GUI elements had accessibility issues, and the AIR score indicated that 15% of the accessibility issues remained and need to be fixed to make the apps accessible.
Personal technologies are rarely designed to be accessible to disabled people, partly due to the perceived challenge of including disability in design. Through design workshops, we addressed this challenge by infusing user-centered design activities with Design for Social Accessibility-a perspective emphasizing social aspects of accessibility-to investigate how professional designers can leverage social factors to include accessibility in design. We focused on how professional designers incorporated Design for Social Accessibility's three tenets: (1) to work with users with and without visual impairments; (2) to consider social and functional factors; (3) to employ tools-a framework and method cards-to raise awareness and prompt reflection on social aspects toward accessible design. We then interviewed designers about their workshop experiences. We found DSA to be an effective set of tools and strategies incorporating social/functional and non/disabled perspectives that helped designers create accessible design.
We conduct the first large-scale analysis of the accessibility of mobile apps, examining what unique insights this can provide into the state of mobile app accessibility. We analyzed 5,753 free Android apps for label-based accessibility barriers in three classes of image-based buttons: Clickable Images, Image Buttons, and Floating Action Buttons. An epidemiology-inspired framework was used to structure the investigation. The population of free Android apps was assessed for label-based inaccessible button diseases. Three determinants of the disease were considered: missing labels, duplicate labels, and uninformative labels. The prevalence, or frequency of occurrences of barriers, was examined in apps and in classes of image-based buttons. In the app analysis, 35.9% of analyzed apps had 90% or more of their assessed image-based buttons labeled, 45.9% had less than 10% of assessed image-based buttons labeled, and the remaining apps were relatively uniformly distributed along the proportion of elements that were labeled. In the class analysis, 92.0% of Floating Action Buttons were found to have missing labels, compared to 54.7% of Image Buttons and 86.3% of Clickable Images. We discuss how these accessibility barriers are addressed in existing treatments, including accessibility development guidelines.
This workshop paper describes experiences conducting two co-design sessions with 15 people with vision impairments. Reflection includes a discussion on the challenges around doing voice-based and tactile co-design with people who are blind or low vision including artifact creation and forming shared representations. This reflection is followed by a critical discussion of ideas for other researchers doing co-design with people with vision impairments and how they can model methods to better facilitate shared meaning among design group participants.
We contribute a qualitative investigation of how teens with visual impairments (VIP) access smartphone photography, from the time they take photos through editing and sharing them on social media. We observed that they largely want to engage with photos visually, similarly to their sighted peers, and have developed strategies around photo capture, editing, sharing, and consumption that attempt to mitigate usability limitations of current photography and social media apps. We demonstrate the need for more work examining how young people with low vision engage with smartphone photography and social media, as they are heavy users of such technologies and have challenges distinct from their totally blind counterparts. We conclude with design considerations to alleviate the usability barriers we uncovered and for making smartphone photography and social media more accessible and relevant for VIPs.
Alt text (short for "alternative text") is descriptive text associated with an image in HTML and other document formats. Screen reader technologies speak the alt text aloud to people who are visually impaired. Introduced with HTML 2.0 in 1995, the alt attribute has not evolved despite significant changes in technology over the past two decades. In light of the expanding volume, purpose, and importance of digital imagery, we reflect on how alt text could be supplemented to offer a richer experience of visual content to screen reader users. Our contributions include articulating the design space of representations of visual content for screen reader users, prototypes illustrating several points within this design space, and evaluations of several of these new image representations with people who are blind. We close by discussing the implications of our taxonomy, prototypes, and user study findings.
Although a critical step in the technology design process, ideation is often not accessible for people with disabilities. We present findings from a design workshop facilitated to brainstorm accessible ideation methods. Groups, mostly engineers, ideated on a design challenge and documented access barriers encountered by participants with disabilities. They then ideated and prototyped potential solutions for decreasing access barriers. We offer suggestions for more accessible communication and ideation on a design team and insights from using a workshop as a site for rethinking ideation.
Despite practices addressing disability in design and advocating user-centered design (UCD) approaches, popular mainstream technologies remain largely inaccessible for people with disabilities. We conducted a design course study investigating how student designers regard disability and explored how designing for both disabled and non-disabled users encouraged students to think about accessibility throughout the design process. Students focused on a design project while learning UCD concepts and techniques, working with people with and without disabilities throughout the project. We found that designing for both disabled and non-disabled users surfaced challenges and tensions in finding solutions to satisfy both groups, influencing students' attitudes toward accessible design. In addressing these tensions, non-functional aspects of accessible design emerged as important complements to functional aspects for users with and without disabilities.
This paper describes a long term user study in which 13 blind participants were asked to use a blind friendly iPhone app, VizSnap -- an app designed to assist blind people in organizing and browsing a photo library without sight -- for a total of two months. VizSnap records audio while the user is aiming the camera, and allows an optional voice memo to be recorded, to allow the user to give custom information to accompany the photo, as well as capturing time, date, and location the photo was taken. All this information is available to the user when browsing through VizSnap's photo library. The participants met with us every two weeks, in which we discuss general VizSnap usage, conduct a short user study with their photos, as well as upload all data that was gathered using VizSnap. The user study aims to determine whether accompanying audio, time, date, and location metadata assists in memory retrieval of photos by blind people. We found that in general, both ambient audio and voice memo are considered most helpful for memory retrieval.
Introduction What is Value Sensitive Design? The Tripartite Methodology: Conceptual, Empirical, and Technical Investigations Value Sensitive Design in Practice: Three Case Studies Value Sensitive Design's Constellation of Features Practical Suggestions for Using Value Sensitive Design Conclusion Acknowledgments References
Over 100 top-traffic and government websites from the United States and United Kingdom were examined for evidence of changes on accessibility indicators over the 14-year period from 1999 to 2012, the longest period studied to date. Automated analyses of WCAG 2.0 Level A Success Criteria found high percentages of violations overall. Unlike more circumscribed studies, however, these sites exhibited improvements over the years on a number of accessibility indicators, with government sites being less likely than topsites to have accessibility violations. Examination of the causes of success and failure suggests that improving accessibility may be due, in part, to changes in website technologies and coding practices rather than a focus on accessibility per se.
Suggested methods for conducting website accessibility evaluations have typically focused on the needs of end-users who have disabilities. However, programmers, not people with disabilities, are the end-users of evaluations reports generated by accessibility specialists. Programmers' capacity and resource needs are seldom met by the voluminous reports and long lists of individual website fixes commonly produced using earlier methods. The rationale for the need to consider the whole website development process, and the social characteristics of programmers and project managers is presented. A new programmer-centric Streamlined Evaluation and Reporting Process for Accessibility (SERPA) is described in detail.
This paper presents a summary of the space of commonly- used HCI prototyping methods (low-fidelity to high- fidelity) and asserts that with a better understanding of this space, HCI practitioners will be better equipped to direct scarce prototyping resources toward an effort likely to yield specific results. It presents a set of five dimensions along which prototypes can be planned and characterized. The paper then describes an analysis of this space performed by members of the NASA Ames Human-Computer Interaction Group when considering prototyping approaches for a new set of tools for Mars mission planning and scheduling tools. A description is presented of a prototype that demonstrates design solutions that would have been particularly difficult to test given conventional low- or mid- fidelity prototyping methods. The prototype created was "mixed-fidelity," that is, high-fidelity on some dimensions and low-fidelity on others. The prototype is compared to a preexisting tool being redesigned and to a tool that has been developed using the prototype. Experimental data are presented that show the prototype to be a good predictor of eventual user performance with the final application. Given the relative cost of developing prototypes, it is critical to better characterize the space of fidelity in order to more precisely allocate design and development resources.
Despite growing awareness of the accessibility issues surrounding touch screen use by blind people, designers still face challenges when creating accessible touch screen interfaces. One major stumbling block is a lack of understanding about how blind people actually use touch screens. We conducted two user studies that compared how blind people and sighted people use touch screen gestures. First, we conducted a gesture elicitation study in which 10 blind and 10 sighted people invented gestures to perform common computing tasks on a tablet PC. We found that blind people have different gesture preferences than sighted people, including preferences for edge-based gestures and gestures that involve tapping virtual keys on a keyboard. Second, we conducted a performance study in which the same participants performed a set of reference gestures. We found significant differences in the speed, size, and shape of gestures performed by blind people versus those performed by sighted people. Our results suggest new design guidelines for accessible touch screen interfaces.
In previous research, the computer frustrations of student and workplace users have been documented. However, the challenges faced by blind users on the Web have not been previously examined. In this study, 100 blind users, using time diaries, re- corded their frustrations using the Web. The top causes of frustration reported were (a) page layout causing confusing screen reader feedback; (b) conflict between screen reader and application; (c) poorly designed/unlabeled forms; (d) no alt text for pictures; and (e) 3-way tie between misleading links, inaccessible PDF, and a screen reader crash. Most of the causes of frustration, such as inappropriate form and graphic labels and confusing page layout, are relatively simple to solve if Webmasters and Web designers focus on this effort. In addition, the more techni- cally challenging frustrations, such as screen reader crashes and conflicts, need to be addressed by the screen reader developers. Blind users in this study were likely to repeatedly attempt to solve a frustration, not give up, and not reboot the computer. In this study, the blind users reported losing, on average, 30.4% of time due to these frustrating situations. Implications for Web developers, screen reader developers, and screen reader users are discussed in this article.
The article focuses on the need of encouraging research on universal usability of computers to empower every citizen The article focuses on the need of encouraging research on universal usability of computers to empower every citizen. Universal usability can be defined as having more than 90% of all households as successful users of information and communications services at least once a week. A 1998 survey of U.S. households shows that 42% have computers and 26% use Internet-based email or other services. A research agenda based on three challenges in attaining universal usability for web-based and other services include the first challenge to cope with the technology variety by supporting the 100-to-1 range of hardware, software and network access speeds. The other two challenges include the accommodation of enormous diversity of users and bridging the gap between what users know and need to know. Attaining benefits of universal access to web-based and other information, communications, entertainment, and government services will require a more intense commitment to lowering costs, coupled with human-computer interaction research and usability engineering. As a concluding note, the article points out the success of the U.S. in making their services usable by many on recognition of centrality of usability by it. INSET: Web Resources for Universal Usability .
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12 Blind And Partially Blind Photographers Changing The Way We See The World
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AI Assisted UI Design for Blind and Low Vision Creators
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Being a Color Blind Designer
- Derek Torsani
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