1. Accessible Technology and Education Robert Cohen Valerie Haven University of Massachusetts Boston

2. 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.orghttp://www.eastalliance.org BATEC - http://www.batec.orghttp://www.batec.org

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. Demo

12. 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

13. Subway Maps

14. UML Diagrams

15. Organization Charts

16. Molecular Diagrams

17. Pert Charts

18. Visual Maps

19. Network Map

20. 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

21. 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

22. 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

23. Future Work  Allow students with visual impairments to create diagrams  Accessible whiteboards  Universal collaborative visual mapping tools

24. Demo