Introducing Accessibility Requirements through External Stakeholder Utilization in an Undergraduate Requirements Engineering Course

Abstract

Undergraduate software engineering courses aim to prepare students to deliver software in a variety of domains. The manner in which these courses are conducted varies, though team projects with real or imaginary stakeholders are common. While the key course concepts vary from the entire lifecycle to specific aspects of design, concepts like accessibility are rare.This paper will present a study of team projects in a requirements engineering course. One group of students conducted projects with accessibility requirements while another group of students delivered projects without accessibility requirements.The course content was the same, including discussion of accessibility.To support the understanding of accessibility, stakeholders with disabilities were included in the requirements engineering process. Both teams benefited from the experience as indirect knowledge acquisition occurred. Students from a previous offering of the course, with no external stakeholder interaction, demonstrated lower levels of accessibility understanding.

Including accessibility within and beyond undergraduate computing courses

“…Also, studies that have examined the use of projects to teach accessibility have found demonstrable benefits [3] [12] [14] [20]. Specifically, projects involving accessibility requirements or working with disabled users have been shown to significantly increase awareness of accessibility issues and designing to meet the needs of a diverse population.…”

“…Ludi [20] includes specific training on requirements gathering related to accessibility in an advanced Engineering course.…”

“…More in depth consideration of accessibility and inclusion has been given in specific -typically advanced --modules (courses) that have been created on this topic [11] [19] [20]. Liffick [19], for example, developed a course, complete with assistive technology (AT) lab, to familiarize students with how disabled users interact with computers.…”

No User Left Behind

“…Another option is to include AE topics in an existing course, such as an HCI course [Liffick 2004]; in this model, the coverage of accessibility and universal design could take a number of forms, including lectures and projects. Several authors have recently described strategies for the inclusion of AE and universal design into the CS curriculum [Carter and Fourney 2007;Cohen et al 2005;Freire et al 2007;Gellenbeck 2005;Harrison 2005;Kane 2007;Liffick 2004Liffick , 2005Ludi 2007; Rosmaita 2006]. Specific strategies to build accessible and universally usable interfaces are discussed in at least three recent publications [Horton 2005;Keates and Clarkson 2003;Shneiderman and Hochheiser 2002].…”

Application of traditional software testing methodologies to web accessibility

“…Similarly, adding accessibility to the scope of testing during requirements gathering has been shown to increase both the accessibility of the product and the level of accessibility awareness within the organization overall. [6] It is not surprising that early detection of issues increases the likelihood of the issues being fixed, as it is well documented that the cost to fix issues increases exponentially as development proceeds. [10] Cost is not the only issue however.…”