Eliciting programming challenges faced by developers with visual impairments

Albusays, Khaled; Ludi, Stephanie

doi:10.1145/2897586.2897616

Cited by 49 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Some of these studies looked at different programming environments such as text-based languages (TBL), Audio Programming Languages (APL), block-based languages (BBLs), and how to enhance the accessibility of these environments [29][30][31][32][33]. Several studies discussed the challenges VI programmers encounter and recommendations on how to overcome such challenges [34,35]. Another common theme in the literature involves evaluating tools and plug-ins to assist VI programmers [36,37].…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Teaching Programming to Students with Vision Impairment: Impact of Tactile Teaching Strategies on Student’s Achievements and Perceptions

2020

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The United Nations (UN) 2030 agenda involved 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to achieve a better and more sustainable world for all. The fourth Sustainable Development Goal called for “ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education and promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all”. Despite international efforts to achieve such a goal, many students with vision impairment (VI) who wish to pursue a degree in computer science face significant challenges and must overcome social and technical obstacles. One challenge is learning how to program as a key skill for pursuing a degree in the field of computer science. This paper explores practical issues in teaching students with VI the basics of programming and presents recommended practices based on a suggested workshop setup. The workshop ran for three weeks, for a total of 60 teaching hours, and involved designing and implementing complete curricula and multi-modal activities to simplify the acquisition of basic programming concepts. Workshop data was collected using several data collection methods—i.e., interviews, observation, questionnaires, performance records, and daily journals. The results indicated an improvement in participants’ programming skills, which was detected through their performance records and final project evaluations. The participants also showed a high interest in learning programming and positive attitudes towards the experience. However, the participants’ experience also involved some challenges such as understanding abstract concepts, code navigation, and some technical issues. The study is hoped to contribute to the literature on education inclusion and to bridge the digital divide in our society.

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Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In Albusays and Ludi [35], the difficulties programmers with VI usually encounter were identified by surveying 69 programmers. They reported some difficulties with code navigation and inaccessible integrated development environments (IDEs) as well as with screen readers and working in teams.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Teaching Programming to Students with Vision Impairment: Impact of Tactile Teaching Strategies on Student’s Achievements and Perceptions

2020

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“…A survey of experienced VI developers has demonstrated that many programming environments are either not fully compatible with screen readers or challenging to navigate solely using auditory feedback alone, this makes them inaccessible to many VI programmers (Albusays & Ludi, 2016). For example Eclipse features a number of tabbed windows, which can be accessed through keyboard shortcuts, however this is a time consuming process when relying on auditory feedback (Cheong, 2010).…”

Section: Accessibility Of Programming Environmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Making Programming Accessible to Learners with Visual Impairments: A Literature Review

Hadwen-Bennett

Sentance

Morrison

2018

IJCSES

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Programming can be challenging to learn and for visually impaired (VI) learners there are numerous additional barriers to the learning process. Many modern programming environments are inaccessible to VI learners, being difficult or impossible to interface with using a screen reader. A review of the literature has identified a number of strategies that have been employed in the quest to make learning to program accessible to VI learners. These can be broadly divided into the following categories; auditory and haptic feedback, making text-based langauges (TBLs) accessible, making block-based languages (BBLs) accessible and physical artefacts.A common theme among the literature is the difficulty VI learners have in gaining an understanding of the overall structure of their code. Much of the research carried out in this space to date focuses on the evaluation of interventions aimed at VI high-school and undergraduate students, with limited attention given to the learning processes of VI learners. Additionally, the majority of the research deals with (TBLs), this is despite the fact that most introductory programming courses for primary learners use (BBLs). Therefore, further research is urgently needed to investigate potential strategies for introducing VI children in primary education to programming and the learning processes involved.

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“…Although there is numerous research that has been performed into these auditory display techniques, the methods as to how visually-impaired programmers currently perform their tasks with existing tools has received considerably less attention [1,5]. The small-scale studies presented in prior work (e.g.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The small-scale studies presented in prior work (e.g. [1,5]) show that screen readers were the most commonly used tool used by visually-impaired programmers to work with their code. Both studies note that screen readers navigate in a linear fashion, meaning that the pro-grammers using them must navigate line-by-line.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Initial Investigation into Non-visual Code Structure Overview Through Speech, Non-speech and Spearcons

Hutchinson

Metatla

2018

Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

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We investigate a novel, non-visual approach to overviewing object-oriented source code and evaluate the efficiency of different categories of sounds for the purpose of getting an overview of source code structure for a visually-impaired computer programmer. A user-study with ten sighted and three non-sighted participants compared the effectiveness of speech, non-speech and spearcons on measures of accuracy and enjoyment for the task of quickly overviewing a class file. Results showed positive implications for the use of non-speech sounds in identifying programming constructs and for aesthetic value, although the effectiveness of the other sound categories in these measurements are not ruled out. Additionally, various design choices of the application impacted results, which should be of interest to designers of auditory display, accessibility and education.

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Eliciting programming challenges faced by developers with visual impairments

Cited by 49 publications

References 6 publications

Teaching Programming to Students with Vision Impairment: Impact of Tactile Teaching Strategies on Student’s Achievements and Perceptions

Teaching Programming to Students with Vision Impairment: Impact of Tactile Teaching Strategies on Student’s Achievements and Perceptions

Making Programming Accessible to Learners with Visual Impairments: A Literature Review

An Initial Investigation into Non-visual Code Structure Overview Through Speech, Non-speech and Spearcons

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