Tesis y Tesistas 2020 - Postgrado - Fac. de Informática - UNLP

MAESTRÍA
INGENIERÍA DE SOFTWARE
Mg. Fernando Durgam
e-mail
fdurgam@gmail.com
Advisor
Dr. Alejandra Garrido
Scientist Consultant
Dr. Julián Grigera
Thesis defense date
October 1, 2020
SEDICI
http://sedici.unlp.edu.ar/handle/10915/111467
Detection of Accessibility
Problems in the Use of
Screen Readers in
Web Applications
Keywords: Accessibilty; Accessibility smells; Accesibility Refactorings; NVDA.
Motivation
The purpose of this work is to diagnose and propose
improvements to web accessibility problems that arise in
the interaction with the keyboard of visually impaired users
who use screen readers. With this it is expected: Finding
solutions to the accessibility difficulties present on the web
that is still unsatisfied by the software industry. Democratize
access to information by providing accessibility to web
portals to favor the inclusion of groups with disabilities. It
enhances teleworking, improves browsing speed and ease
of access regardless of the devices used.
Thesis contributions
An inventory of accessibility problems and solutions geared
towards software modifications that includes:
1. A new version of the Kobold tool, specific for accessibility,
offering “Accessibility as a Service” based on smell diagnosis
with client-side refactoring solutions.
2. A catalog of strategies to detect Accessibility Events in web
applications during the actions detectable by an embedded
snippet and those produced on the NVDA Virtual Buffer.
3. A software tool as an extension of NVDA to detect
Accessibility Events in the Virtual Buffer that allows to
recognize inaccessible actions from the snippet and report
them to the Server component.
4. A catalog of automatically discoverable Accessibility
Smells for visually impaired users that describes the
accessibility issues recognized by the tool.
5. A catalog of Accessibility Refactorings as web interface
transformations, which can be applied to issues cataloged
as Accessibility Smells.
6. A set of case studies, where to view each Accessibility
Events, Accessibility Smells and Accessibility Refactorings,
describing the difficulty, its detection method and an
application for its treatment.
7. A website that contains a testbed to simulate the
detection of accessibility events and scripts to implement
the Accessibility Refactorings through Javascript consoles.
This makes it possible to observe the behaviors and
elements of the interface where the identified difficulties
are manifested.
8. A system to estimate detection parameters of Accessibility
Events. Including a snippet with Javascript code, an installable
plugins that extends NVDA, to access actions in the Virtual
Buffer and a REST API with user authentication. Together
these components process and report information necessary
to adjust the estimators involved in the detection processes.
Future Research Lines
There are lines of research that arise during the thesis, have
remained open and are possible to continue in the future.
Some as a result of the investigation and others that exceed
the scope of the work and were not covered in sufficient
depth, giving rise to the following questions:
- What results would be obtained by applying the
methodology on a large scale?
When it is implemented in applications of massive use,
with thousands of concurrent users, such as the case of
Facebook, G suite or Moodle, the behavior of the tool could
be studied and the way in which the actions to apply the
refactorings are detected and reported could be evaluated.
- What parameter indicators are most convenient in
detecting Smell Accessibility?
Considering the measurement of user actions based on
statistical information, one could seek to improve the confidence
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