Accessible Technology and Education

Robert CohenValerie Haven

University of Massachusetts Boston

Part 2 Topics

Teaching accessibility in introductory programming courses Work with Alex Fairley, Gustavo Lima, and

David Gerry Improving accessibility for students with visual

impairments Work with Arthur Meacham, Joelle Skaff, Emily

Higgins, Jessica Lanzoni, and Michael Wissell Thanks

East Alliance - http://www.eastalliance.org BATEC - http://www.batec.org

Teaching Accessibility in Introductory Programming Courses

Goal: Bring awareness of accessibility to Java

programming students Method:

Java based projects that incorporate accessibility Results:

Simple accessibility unit for programming course Several interesting Java projects

Motivation Initial factors

Programming student who is blind Effective interaction with emacs Moving to Eclipse

East Alliance SURF Scholarships Supporting undergraduate research in

accessibility in STEM Major motivation

Accessibility is important Easy to add (technically) to a programming

course that uses Java and Swing

Accessibility Making technology available to all users

Regardless of disability Required by law

Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 Section 508

The right thing to do Many assistive technologies exist

special keyboards, intelligent mice, typing aids, text-to-speech software, speech recognition software, easy-touch screens, etc.

Useful for all users In different modalities

Assistive Technology for the Visually Impaired Screen readers important

Convert text to speech Helps make applications accessible Application design is crucial

Technologies JAWS common (but expensive) Gnome Accessibility Project (Gnopernicus)

Java Accessibility Screen reader connections

Accessible name, description and tool tips Keyboard shortcuts - mnemonics

Accessible Software (Trace Center)

Type 1 designed with accessible features built in

Type 2 compatible with current assistive

technology Type 3

neither directly accessible, nor readily compatible with existing assistive technology

Teaching Accessibility in CS1 The goal is to make students aware of the

issues not much more – Java programming courses are

already packed full of material Gives a context to discuss a social issues

The technical distance is small Type 1 Projects require learning about sound

Beyond the scope of the course Type 2 projects require little more than the

Swing we (may) already teach For example, there is a section on Tool Tips and

Mnemonics in Lewis & Loftus 4th Edition

Design Guidelines We can introduce some design rules:

Provide Accessible Names for all Components. Provide Accessible Descriptions for components

that need to have one. Provide keyboard navigation and focus for all

components that a sighted person would want to see or interact with.

Provide Mnemonics for keyboard control. Customized components should support

accessibility. Should not be a major focus of a course

Could be part of a term project

Sample Projects Examples

Number Format Converter converts numbers from one radix format to

another Accessible Calculator

Write accessibility into a custom component (a keypad)

Audio Visualizer Illustrates the use of both graphical and audio

display elements

Demo

Improving Accessibility for Students with Visual Impairments

Current tools to assist users who are visually impaired read text Good for textual information Poor for diagrams

We focus on relational diagrams Diagrams where underlying

representation are graphs

Subway Maps

UML Diagrams

Organization Charts

Molecular Diagrams

Pert Charts

Visual Maps

Network Map

PLUMB(exPLoring graphs at UMB)

Use auditory cues to help visually impaired users explore graphs Active exploration

Implemented on a tablet PC using C# Uses the pen and a modified mouse

Goals Assist visually impaired users to understand

relational data represented as graphs. Active exploration – the user should be able

to navigate and explore the graph based on user interface gestures

Usable by both blind and sighted users Implemented on widely available hardware

and software

Tablet PC Advantages

Conducive for active exploration Blind users can jump to remembered

locations Compact in size Widely available Good built-in multimedia capabilities Usable with little or no hardware

modifications

Future Work

Allow students with visual impairments to create diagrams

Accessible whiteboards Universal collaborative visual

mapping tools

Demo