research-article

Exploring the Need of Accessibility Education in the Software Industry: Insights from a Survey of Software Professionals in India

Authors:

P. D. Parthasarathy,

Swaroop JoshiAuthors Info & Claims

ICSE-SEET '24: Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training

Pages 212 - 220

https://doi.org/10.1145/3639474.3640079

Published: 24 May 2024 Publication History

Abstract

According to a UserWay study in 2021, e-commerce businesses suffer a revenue loss of approximately USD 16 billion annually due to inaccessible websites and software applications. WebAIM's 2023 report claims that only 3.7% of the world's top one million website homepages are fully accessible. Clearly, many software developers do not use software development and testing practices according to accessibility guidelines such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Our paper reports on software professionals' views about addressing accessibility. We seek to understand (a) the characteristics of people within the software industry who use or have used accessibility guidelines, (b) when and how professionals consider accessibility needs in the software development lifecycle, (c) the various challenges encountered in building accessible software, and (d) the resources required by software professionals to enhance product accessibility. Our survey of 269 software professionals from India underscores the need for accessibility education within the software industry. Over two-thirds of respondents express the need for training materials, workshops, and boot camps to enhance their accessibility skills. We present some recommendations for promoting accessibility awareness and skills among software professionals that emerged from the study.

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Cited By

Parthasarathy PJoshi S(2024)Teaching Digital Accessibility in Computing Education: Views of Educators in IndiaProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671122(222-232)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671122

Index Terms

Exploring the Need of Accessibility Education in the Software Industry: Insights from a Survey of Software Professionals in India
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Accessibility
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics
    1. Computing education
      1. Computing education programs
        Software engineering education

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cover image ACM Conferences

ICSE-SEET '24: Proceedings of the 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training

April 2024

417 pages

ISBN:9798400704987

DOI:10.1145/3639474

Co-chairs:
Ana Paiva,
Rui Abreu,
Kiev Gama
Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), Brazil
,
Janet Siegmund
Chemnitz University of Technology, Germany
,
Program Co-chairs:
Abhik Roychoudhury,
Margaret Storey

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Published: 24 May 2024

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ICSE-SEET '24: 46th International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training

April 14 - 20, 2024

Lisbon, Portugal

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Cited By

Parthasarathy PJoshi S(2024)Teaching Digital Accessibility in Computing Education: Views of Educators in IndiaProceedings of the 2024 ACM Conference on International Computing Education Research - Volume 110.1145/3632620.3671122(222-232)Online publication date: 12-Aug-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3632620.3671122

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