Sunday, July 28, 2019

Inaccessibility of software authoring tools is hurdle for blinds in IT career


Computer science or information technology career is consider as most suitable and rewarding career for persons with visual disabilities.

But inaccessibility of user interfaces of software authoring tools for persons with disabilities is the major hurdle in computer science, engineering, technology education and career in the allied area for persons with visual disabilities.

in the present study we have chosen a sample of 12 popular editors, integrated development environments, content management systems and RDBMS packages and studied accessibility issues of user interfaces of the chosen applications with the help of end users with visual disabilities using 3 popular screen readers as per Authoring tools accessibility guidelines for web authoring tools and Microsoft active accessibility and Microsoft user interface automation. 10 Expert persons with visual disabilities who has expertise in the area of software development are chosen as sample across India.

 Survey method is used to collect the information online. Questionnaire and personal interview survey tools are used. Difficulties reported by the expert samples in questionnaires and interviews are analysed as per the chosen standards and guidelines. It has been found that almost all applications have accessibility issues while using screen readers. Accessibility standards and guidelines are not fully implemented in the user interfaces of any of the chosen application which is the major hurdle for persons with visual disabilities in information technology education and career.

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