A Web Design Framework for Improved Accessibility for People with Disabilities (WDFAD)
Loading...
Date
2008
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
International World Wide Web Conference.
Abstract
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) such as the
World Wide Web (WWW) has increasingly become embedded
in everyday life and is progressively becoming indispensable for
public, business, personal efficiency or even improvement of
livelihoods [1]. Web users including People with Disabilities
(PWDs) can conveniently undertake a number of tasks that
would otherwise be difficult or impossible. But many Web
applications such as e-learning, e-commerce and e-government
are not accessible to PWDs including the blind. Through Web
accessibility guidelines, Web developers can develop Web
applications that are accessible to PWDs. However, majority of
the available accessibility guidelines are difficult to integrate
into existing developer workflows and rarely offer specific
suggestions that are developer oriented. In this paper, we
propose a Web Design Framework for Improved Accessibility
for People with Disabilities (WDFAD). The WDFAD provides
precise guidelines on how to develop Web applications that are
accessible to PWDs particularly the blind. These are packaged
according to the three components of Web applications namely;
content, navigation and user interface. Using constructs of the
Non Functional Requirements (NFR) Framework, Web
accessibility design objectives are represented as primary goals
and sub goals. The primary goals represent the high level
accessibility design objectives, while the sub goals represent the
requirements that need to be met in the Web development
process in order to meet each primary goal. WDFAD also
illustrates the overlaps between the process of meeting each
primary goal. This unveils the optimal ways of achieving Web
accessibility during Web design. The precise nature of WDFAD
and its packaging according to the main components of Web
applications makes Web accessibility requirements potentially
easier to understand and apply by Web developers. Web
Developers prefer precise and familiar tools due to their busy
work life and daily interface and expression in formal
instructions. In addition, the global versus local classification of
Web accessibility requirements in WDFAD modularizes the
web accessibility guidelines hence making them easier to
understand, apply and update.
Description
Keywords
Web Accessibility, People with disabilities, Blind, Requirements, Web design framework
Citation
Baguma, R., & Lubega, J. T. (2008, April). A web design framework for improved accessibility for people with disabilities (WDFAD). In Proceedings of the 2008 international cross-disciplinary conference on Web accessibility (W4A) (pp. 134-140).