Sprint to Inclusion: Embedding Accessibility Sprint in a Software Engineering Course
Pages 32 - 38
Abstract
This experience report contributes to the expanding body of literature advocating for the inclusion of accessibility topics within core computing courses rather than restricting them to specialized electives such as human-computer interaction (HCI). We integrated an accessibility-focused sprint into a 3-credit software engineering course at a large private university in the US. Throughout the course, students progressively developed a software project in groups with a dedicated sprint designed to emphasize the importance of accessibility. This sprint included lectures on accessibility principles and hands-on accessibility testing on their own projects, followed by a sprint to fix the issues found. A survey was conducted at the end of the course to gauge their learning outcomes and perceptions of accessibility. The results demonstrate that integrating accessibility into a software engineering course not only enhances students' technical skills but also boosts their commitment to creating inclusive software. We present the accessibility interventions made, assessment instruments used and our findings in this report. We also offer key insights as takeaways for the computing education community, providing guidance for educators aiming to embed accessibility into their curriculum.
References
[1]
2018. Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Technical Report A/RES/61/106. United Nations.
[2]
2018. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. Technical Report. W3C. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
[3]
2019. Curricula on Web Accessibility. Technical Report. W3C. https://www.w3.org/WAI/curricula/
[4]
2021. Apple Human Interface Guidelines - Accessibility. https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/accessibility/overview/introduction/
[5]
2023. Accessibility Skills Gap Survey 2022. Technical Report. Teach Access. https://teachaccess.org/accessibility-skills-gap/
[6]
2024. The WebAIM Million -- The 2024 report on the a11y of the top 1,000,000 home pages. Technical Report. WebAIM. https://webaim.org/projects/million/
[7]
Richard Ladner Alannah Oleson, Amy J. Ko. 2024. Teaching Accessible Computing. bookish.press.
[8]
Lisandra Armas, Hesmeralda Rojas, and Ronald Renteria. 2020. Proposal for an accessible software development model. In 2020 3rd International Conference of Inclusive Technology and Education (CONTIE). IEEE, Baja California Sur, Mexico, 104--109. https://doi.org/10.1109/CONTIE51334.2020.00028
[9]
Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. El-Glaly, and Kristen Shinohara. 2020. A systematic analysis of accessibility in computing education research. In Proceedings of the 51st ACM TS on CS education (SIGCSE '20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 107--113. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366843
[10]
Jaskaran Singh Bhatia, Parthasarathy P D, Snigdha Tiwari, Dhruv Nagpal, and Swaroop Joshi. 2023. Integrating Accessibility in a Mobile App Development Course. In ACM SIGCSE '23. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3545945.3569825
[11]
Robert F. Cohen, Alexander V. Fairley, David Gerry, and Gustavo R. Lima. 2005. Accessibility in Introductory Computer Science. In Proceedings of the 36th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '05). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 17--21. https://doi.org/10.1145/1047344.1047367
[12]
Yasmine N. El-Glaly. 2020. Teaching accessibility to software engineering students. In Annual conference on innovation and technology in computer science education, ITiCSE. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366914
[13]
Yasmine N. Elglaly, Catherine M. Baker, Anne Spencer Ross, and Kristen Shinohara. 2024. Beyond HCI: The Need for Accessibility Across the CS Curriculum. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1. ACM, Portland OR USA, 324--330. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630788
[14]
André P. Freire, Raphael W. de Bettio, Elaine G. Frade, Fernanda B. Ferrari, José Monserrat Neto, and Helena Libardi. 2013. Accessibility of Web and Multimedia Content: Techniques and Examples from the Educational Context. In Proceedings of the 19th Brazilian Symposium on Multimedia and the Web (WebMedia '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 7--8. https://doi.org/10.1145/2526188.2528538
[15]
Lin Jia, Yasmine N. Elglaly, Catherine M. Baker, and Kristen Shinohara. 2021. Infusing Accessibility into Programming Courses. In Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI. ACM, Yokohama Japan, 1--6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411763.3451625
[16]
Brian Kelly and Yasmine El-Glaly. 2021. Introducing Accessibility to High School Students. In Proceedings of the 52nd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, Virtual Event USA, 163--169. https://doi.org/10.1145/3408877.3432466
[17]
David R. Krathwohl. 2002. A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy: An Overview. Vol. Nov 2022. Theory Into Practice 41, 212--218. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15430421tip4104_2
[18]
Amruth N. Kumar, Rajendra K. Raj, Sherif G. Aly, Monica D. Anderson, Brett A. Becker, Richard L. Blumenthal, Eric Eaton, Susan L. Epstein, Michael Goldweber, Pankaj Jalote, Douglas Lea, Michael Oudshoorn, Marcelo Pias, Susan Reiser, Christian Servin, Rahul Simha, Titus Winters, and Qiao Xiang. 2024. Computer Science Curricula 2023. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA.
[19]
Sri H. Kurniawan, Sonia Arteaga, and Roberto Manduchi. 2010. A General Education Course on Universal Access, Disability, Technology and Society. In Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS (ASSETS '10). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 11--18. https://doi.org/10.1145/1878803.1878808
[20]
Sarah Lewthwaite and David Sloan. 2016. Exploring pedagogical culture for accessibility education in computing science. ACM Press, 1--4. https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899490
[21]
Stephanie Ludi. 2007. Introducing Accessibility Requirements through External Stakeholder Utilization in an Undergraduate Requirements Engineering Course. In 29th ICSE'07). IEEE, Minneapolis, MN, USA. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE.2007.46
[22]
Stephanie Ludi, Matt Huenerfauth, Vicki Hanson, Nidhi Rajendra Palan, and Paula Garcia. 2018. Teaching Inclusive Thinking to Undergraduate Students in Computing Programs. ACM Press, 717--722. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159512
[23]
Kerstin Matausch, Barbara Hengstberger, and Klaus Miesenberger. 2006. ''Assistec'' -- A University Course on Assistive Technologies. In Computers Helping People with Special Needs. Vol. 4061. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 361--368. https://doi.org/10.1007/11788713_54 Series Editors: :n353.
[24]
Microsoft Inc. 2016. Microsoft Design: Inclusive Design Toolkit. https://www.microsoft.com/design/inclusive/
[25]
Nidhi Rajendra Palan, Vicki L. Hanson, Matt Huenerfauth, and Stephanie Ludi. 2017. Teaching Inclusive Thinking in Undergraduate Computing. In ACM SIGACCESS. ACM, 399--400. https://doi.org/10.1145/3132525.3134808
[26]
P. D. Parthasarathy and Swaroop Joshi. 2024. Exploring the Need of Accessibility Education in the Software Industry: Insights from a Survey of Software Professionals in India. In Proceedings of the 46th ICSE. ACM. https://doi.org/10.1145/3639474.3640079
[27]
P. D. Parthasarathy and Swaroop Joshi. 2024. Teaching Digital Accessibility to Industry Professionals Using the Community of Practice Framework: An Experience Report. In Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training. ACM, Lisbon Portugal, 191--200. https://doi.org/10.1145/3639474.3640083
[28]
Rohan Patel, Pedro Breton, Catherine M. Baker, Yasmine N. El-Glaly, and Kristen Shinohara. 2020. Why Software Is Not Accessible: Technology Professionals' Perspectives and Challenges. In Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI. ACM, Honolulu HI USA, 1--9. https://doi.org/10.1145/3334480.3383103
[29]
Brian J. Rosmaita. 2006. Accessibility First!: A New Approach to Web Design. In Proceedings of the 37th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '06). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 270--274. https://doi.org/10.1145/1121341.1121426
[30]
Joel Ross, Amy Ko, and David L. Stearns. 2017. Accessibility as a first-class concern in teaching GUIs and software engineering (abstract only). In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE technical symposium on computer science education (SIGCSE '17). New York, NY, USA, 701. https://doi.org/10.1145/3017680.3022393
[31]
Johnny Saldaña. 2021. The coding manual for qualitative researchers (4e [fourth edition] ed.). SAGE Publishing Ltd, London [England] ; Thousand Oaks.
[32]
Kristen Shinohara, Saba Kawas, Amy Ko, and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. Who Teaches Accessibility? A Survey of U.S. Computing Faculty. In Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE'18). ACM, Baltimore, Maryland, USA, 197--202. https://doi.org/10.1145/3159450.3159484
[33]
Leandro Soares Guedes and Monica Landoni. 2020. How Are We Teaching and Dealing with Accessibility? A Survey From Switzerland. In 9th International Conference on Software Development and Technologies for Enhancing Accessibility and Fighting Info-exclusion. ACM, Online Portugal, 141--146. https://doi.org/10.1145/3439231.3440610
[34]
Tatiana Iskandar, Dominic Gannaway, Ankit Sardesai, and Jonathan Yung. 2020. Making Facebook.Com Accessible to as Many People as Possible. https://engineering.fb.com/2020/07/30/web/facebook-com-accessibility/
[35]
Chia-En Tseng, Seoung Ho Jung, Yasmine N. Elglaly, Yudong Liu, and Stephanie Ludi. 2022. Exploration on Integrating Accessibility into an AI Course. In Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, Providence RI USA, 864--870. https://doi.org/10.1145/3478431.3499399
[36]
Mike Wald. 2008. Design of a 10 credit masters level assistive technologies and universal design module. In International conference on computers for handicapped persons. 190--193. tex.organization: Springer.
[37]
Annalu Waller, Vicki L. Hanson, and David Sloan. 2009. Including Accessibility within and beyond Undergraduate Computing Courses. In Proceeding of the Eleventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility-ASSETS '09. ACM Press, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, 155. https://doi.org/10.1145/1639642.1639670
[38]
Ye Diana Wang. 2012. A Holistic and Pragmatic Approach to Teaching Web Accessibility in an Undergraduate Web Design Course. In Proceedings of the 13th SIGITE (SIGITE '12). ACM, 55--60. https://doi.org/10.1145/2380552.2380568
Index Terms
- Sprint to Inclusion: Embedding Accessibility Sprint in a Software Engineering Course
Recommendations
Accessibility Insights from Student's Software Engineering Projects
SIGCSETS 2025: Proceedings of the 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1With over 95% of the top one million websites not being fully accessible, teaching digital accessibility to computing students is crucial. In this study, conducted over three spring semesters within a Software Engineering project course, we introduced ...
Accessibility in Software Engineering: Pursuing the Mainstream from a Classroom
Learning and Collaboration Technologies. Learning and TeachingAbstractThough 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, ...
Cognitive Disabilities and Accessibility - Pushing the Boundaries of Inclusion Using Digital Technologies and Accessible eLearning Environments: Introduction to the Special Thematic Session
Computers Helping People with Special NeedsAbstractThe aim of this session is to bring together researchers and developers who are engaged in the development and evaluation of digital technologies and e-learning environments to improve the conditions for social participation of people with ...
Comments
Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
February 2025
1405 pages
ISBN:9798400705311
DOI:10.1145/3641554
- General Chairs:
- Jeffrey A. Stone,
- Timothy Yuen,
- Program Chairs:
- Libby Shoop,
- Samuel A. Rebelsky,
- James Prather
Copyright © 2025 ACM.
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].
Sponsors
Publisher
Association for Computing Machinery
New York, NY, United States
Publication History
Published: 18 February 2025
Check for updates
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Research-article
Conference
SIGCSE TS 2025
Sponsor:
SIGCSE TS 2025: The 56th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education
February 26 - March 1, 2025
PA, Pittsburgh, USA
Acceptance Rates
SIGCSETS 2025 Paper Acceptance Rate 192 of 604 submissions, 32%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 1,787 of 5,146 submissions, 35%
Upcoming Conference
SIGCSE TS 2025
- Sponsor:
- sigcse
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 1Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)1
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)1
Reflects downloads up to 18 Feb 2025
Other Metrics
Citations
View Options
Login options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Sign in