Browsing by Author "Branco, Frederico"
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- Accessibility in Software Engineering: Pursuing the Mainstream from a ClassroomPublication . Silva, João; Gonçalves, Ramiro; Martins, José; Branco, Frederico; Pereira, AntónioThough equal access to all digital devices, content and applications should be ensured by default in the Digital Age, reality has yet to match this ideal, despite the numerous efforts to raise awareness of the problem. For the visually impaired, the existence of e-accessibility issues represents a barrier that, in the majority of situations, cannot be overcome. Nevertheless, this group of individuals still insists on using digital devices, to carry out tasks from their daily lives, such as reading and writing e-mails, reading news and weather websites, and using social networks. This assumption has been validated through a survey completed by 29 blind or partially sighted individuals. Considering that the lack of depth of knowledge in developers constitutes one of the most significant constraints to the development of accessibility software and digital content, the proposal for “slide 0” to be included as an educational resource, when developers are learning how to engineer software, is discussed later in the paper. This contribution, if precisely focused on the various types of software projects, would represent a novel addition to the existing scientific literature, but also a comprehensive aid to the inclusion of e-accessibility when lecturing experts on software engineering.
- Accessible software development: a conceptual model proposalPublication . Silva, João Sousa e; Gonçalves, Ramiro; Branco, Frederico; Au‑Yong‑Oliveira, Manuel; Martins, José; Pereira, AntónioEqual access to all software and digital content should be a reality in the Digital Era. This argument is something defended both by existing regulations, norms and standards, and also business organizations and governments. Despite this acknowledgement, the reality is still far from the desired equality. For certain groups of disabled or impaired citizens, such as the visually impaired, the existence of e-accessibility compliance represents an opportunity to integrate, in a more simple and straightforward manner, their societies. Despite the existing poor results on e-accessibility compliance, the mentioned citizens insist on using digital devices in their daily lives. Even though, in the last decade, multiple standards and regulations have been published towards indicating how to develop accessible digital user interfaces, there are still two major issues surrounding its implementation: the complexity and disparity of the documents containing the abovementioned norms, and also the lack of e-accessibility know-how by software experts. With this in mind, a proposal for an accessible software development model that encompasses e-accessibility incorporation as one of the development process activities has been presented. This model might represent a very interesting support tool for software development organizations and a novel resource for learning and training institutions to be able to improve their computer science and informatics students’ skills on e-accessibility.