Teaching about Accessibility in Computer Science Education

Abstract

A ccessibility, in the context of computer science (CS), is about making computing products accessible to disabled people.Accessibility is also about creating technical solutions to accessibility problems that disabled people encounter in everyday living.These solutions may include the use of artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, natural language processing (NLP), or other CS topics.In this article, we define what accessibility and disability mean, enumerate the technologies disabled people use for accessibility, discuss the accessibility standards used throughout the world, discuss the importance of accessibility research, and give advice on what accessibility topics can be used in several CS courses.a r t i c l e s Teaching about Accessibility in Computer Science EducationBeyond making applications and websites accessible, accessibility includes the development of applications and other tools that support independence and inclusion for people with certain kinds of disabilities.For example, a screen reader is an application in its own right.It converts text to speech and supports navigation within an accessible application or website.There is an entire industry segment, often called the assistive technology industry sector, that focuses on technology to improve the lives of disabled people.This industry produces thousands of products from powered wheelchairs to sip-and-puff devices.This industry sector also includes large companies, such as Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple, that have pioneered some of these technologies.Examples include the XBox Adaptive Controller from Microsoft, automatic captioning for YouTube from Google, and touchscreen screen reader VoiceOver from Apple.Accessibility also has an active research community that includes industry and academia worldwide.Accessibility research appears in the ACM SIGACCESS-sponsored annual ASSETS conference which is all about accessibility.Other ACM-sponsored HCI conferences-CHI, UIST, and CSCW-often have sessions on accessibility related papers.Other conferences that feature accessibility research and development are RESNA, ICCHP, ICCAAT, and CSUN.There are also a number of conferences that are primarily about assistive technology development, including Closing the Gap, Accessing a Higher Ground, and the Assistive Technology Industry Association Conference.Within academia there are hundreds of individual researchers who are active in accessibility research and development.There are a few centers of excellence including the Center for Research and Education on Accessible Technology and Experiences (CREATE) at the University of Washington, the Trace Research and Development Center at the University of Maryland, the Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility also at the University of Maryland, the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities at the University of Colorado, and the Monash Assistive Technology and Society Centre at Monash University in Australia.These centers are not just for accessibility research but for education, policy, and advocacy around accessibility.It is important to state that accessibility innovations are often pioneered by disabled people themselves.They are not just the recipients of accessible technology but the designers and creators of the technology.One recent example is the pair of blind computer scientists, Michael Curran and James Teh, who created nonvisual desktop access (NVDA), the first open source screen reader for PCs.It is available for free for Windows computers.Other technologies pioneered by disabled people include the three-wheeled scooter, acoustic modem, and the lightbulb.Yes, Thomas Edison was very hard of hearing.a r t i c l e s

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