Track: Engineering Education

Abstract

There have been many lawsuits targeting organizations that have yet to make an effort to make their websites accessible to persons with disabilities. And hence, many vendors have started to make an effort in making their web interfaces accessible to persons with disabilities. Many research studies have also emerged, targeting user studies of persons with disabilities on the accessible web interface given the limitations of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).  Considering that the majority of the users comes from the general population, besides employing persons with disabilities, it is critical to also employ the general population in conducting user testing on the accessible web interface. However, existing literature on the perspectives of the general population on the accessible web interface is rather limited, in particular on individual accessibility features implemented according to WCAG. Obtaining the general population’s insights on individual accessibility features is critical as it enables us to examine the individual accessibility features from the perspectives of the general population with a more critical lens. Our preliminary pilot user study findings suggest that the general population regard the accessibility features that they see as either (1) not relevant, (2) no effect or (3) helpful.