Towards the universal semantic assessment of accessibility

ABSTRACT

The ever increasing adoption of software technologies has bring closer technology to users with disabilities and users that interact with devices other than a PC. This diversification poses a real challenge to developers when creating software that has to cope with a myriad of interaction situations, as well as specific directives for ensuring an accessible interaction. In this paper we present SAAF, the Semantic Accessibility Assessment Framework. SAAF provides a set of constructs to describe the semantics of accessibility assessment procedures that can cope with different users, devices, and software technologies in a coherent and formalised way. SAAF affords the description of users and devices, their constraints and requirements, in the light of different accessibility assessment procedures. We exemplify the usage of SAAF by applying it in the context of the Web and related accessibility best practices such as WCAG.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Theory and methods

General Terms:
Human Factors

Keywords:
semantic accessibility assessment, universal accessibility