Accessible Technology and Education Robert Cohen Valerie 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 - BATEC -

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 4 th 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