Accessibility in Web Development Courses: A Case Study
2020 (English)In: Informatics, ISSN 2227-9709, Vol. 7, no 1, article id 8Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
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.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Basel, Switzerland: MDPI, 2020. Vol. 7, no 1, article id 8
Keywords [en]
accessibility, disability, education, curriculum, web development, web design, web programming, usability
National Category
Interaction Technologies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-17100DOI: 10.3390/informatics7010008ISI: 000523665900004OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-17100DiVA, id: diva2:1425427
2020-04-212020-04-212021-10-28Bibliographically approved