Accessibility in Web Development Courses: A Case Study

Abstract

Web accessibility is becoming a relevant topic with an increased number of people with disabilities and the elderly using the web. Numerous legislations are being passed that require the web to be universally accessible to all people, regardless of their abilities and age. Despite this trend, university curricula still teach traditional web development without addressing accessibility as a topic. To investigate this matter closely, we studied the syllabi of web development courses at one university to evaluate whether the topic of accessibility was taught there. Additionally, we conducted a survey with nineteen students who were enrolled in a web development course, and we interviewed three lecturers from the same university. Our findings suggest that the topic of accessibility is not covered in web development courses, although both students and lecturers think that it should. This generates lack of competence in accessibility. The findings also confirm the finding of previous studies that, among web developers, there is a low familiarity with accessibility guidelines and policies. An interesting finding we uncovered was that gender affects the motivation to learn about accessibility. Females were driven by personal reasons, which we attribute to females having an increased sense of empathy. Finally, our participants were divided in their opinions whether accessibility contributes to usability.

Mapping The European Digital Accessibility Field: The IMPACT Project

“…An overview of the available training in digital accessibility shows that existing offerings is divided between academic and vocational education. The first is usually carried out at universities, as part of a technological degree and mainly centered on providing low effort solutions that allow compliance with the law (Ferati 2020).…”

“…In both cases training is focused on compliance with existing digital accessibility legislation and standards, such as WCAG2.0/2.1. Existing training fails to provide more inclusive and empathy-driven design, implementation and testing approaches, as technology cannot be isolated from the social context (Ferati 2020;Foley and Ferri 2012;Lazar 2002;Putnam et al 2016;Seale 2004). This generates a lack of competence in understanding accessibility with social inclusion in mind, especially in the case of the technology community, which could benefit from shifting its attention from the product of accessibility towards the process of accessibility (Seale 2004).…”

Analysis of the graphical user interface of the online store, taking into account the methods of universal design

“…The study presented in article [3] consisted in examining the availability of websites. Received the answer for the questions such as: why the topic of accessibility is so rare and what can be done to solve this problem from the perspective of students and lecturers were obtained.…”

Mada ICT Accessibility and Inclusive Design ICT-AID Competency Framework

“…In the same way, ITU organization offers a self-paced online training on ICT accessibility with the aim to develop a good understanding of ICT accessibility among all relevant stakeholders [18]. Apart from above examples of organizations striving to achieve ICT accessibility through capacity building and training, several universities have also joined these endeavors and have integrated ICT accessibility courses into their curricula [19] [20]. In Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa University HBKU [5] and Community College of Qatar CCQ have recently introduced courses dealing with digital accessibility in their curriculum.…”