Accessibility | Swaroop Joshi

AccessQuest: A Game-Based Approach to Digital Accessibility Education

Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Accessibility Education for Software Engineers: Evaluating the Impact of Game-Based Learning

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Skill, Will, or Both? Understanding Digital Inaccessibility from Accessibility Professionals' Viewpoint

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This survey of 160 accessibility professionals provides an updated perspective on the state of digital accessibility. The results highlight the need for stronger leadership commitment, investment in training, and integration of accessibility into core business strategies.

Using Game-based Learning for Teaching Accessibility

Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:38:06 +0530

Accessibility Insights from Student's Software Engineering Projects

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Sprint to Inclusion: Embedding Accessibility Sprint in a Software Engineering Course

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Reflections on Incorporating Digital Accessibility in an Operating Systems Course

Sun, 01 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Teaching Digital Accessibility in Computing Education: Views of Educators in India

Mon, 24 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We replicated surveys from the US and Switzerland to assess who among CS faculty in India teaches accessibility and the barriers they face. We also included a qualitative analysis of faculty perceptions. Findings show that few CS faculty teach accessibility and face similar barriers to those identified in Western studies. The analysis suggests a need for better training on accessibility concepts and sensitization to disabilities, as well as greater exposure to current research and pedagogies.

Exploring the Need of Accessibility Education in the Software Industry

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We surveyed 269 software professionals in India to explore who practices digital accessibility, when and how it is integrated into development, the challenges they face, and the resources they need for better integration of accessibility. Our results indicate a strong demand for accessibility training. We offer actionable recommendations for improving accessibility awareness and skills in the industry.

Teaching Digital Accessibility to Industry Professionals using the Community of Practice Framework

Mon, 01 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We implemented a training program to teach digital accessibility using the Communities of Practice (CoP) framework. The study involved 66 participants from a large multinational software company, divided into two groups: one using CoP and the other engaging in self-paced learning. The paper outlines the design, execution, and evaluation of the training program. It offers recommendations for creating effective accessibility courses for industry professionals.

Accessible Indian Bubbles: A Radio Show in New Zealand!

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 23:47:53 +0530

At the recent ACM conference at IIIT-Hyderabad, we met , one of the keynote speakers and a professor at Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.

Otago Polytechnic is one of the southernmost universities in the world. They aim to have all their graduating students be able to “think and act as sustainability practitioners” irrespective of their areas of expertise. Sam has pioneered this program and has authored a book titled The Green Graduate on the same.

He also hosts a weekly radio show, Blowing Bubbles, on Otago Access Radio. After learning about , he invited us to record an episode for his show, which was broadcast on Dec 13.

We talked about teaching accessibility from various angles: what we are doing and why we are doing it, to whether accessibility should be taught in a separate course or be a part of all CS courses, to our superpowers, to what gets us going in the morning, to the challenges and opportunities we foresee in the coming few years.

It was great talking to Sam about these and many other things (outside the podcast). I hope you will enjoy listening to our conversation.

I found his characterisation that “People with disabilities is the largest minority anyone can become a part of in a heartbeat” very insightful.

After the recording, I asked Sam what his superpower is, and he said he can find anything exciting. Isn’t that fascinating!

Go to the Podcast

Serious Games for Enhancing Accessibility Awareness and Skills

Sat, 09 Dec 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Accessible Science Labs

Fri, 31 Mar 2023 16:01:28 +0530

This project is no longer active.

Background

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 ( ) states that educational institutes should “provide reasonable accommodation according to the individual’s requirements and provide necessary support, individualised or otherwise, in environments that maximise academic and social development consistent with the goal of full inclusion” (Art. 16(iii-iv)). However, about 75% of children with disabilities (CWD) in India in their lifetime. CWDs are poorly represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, partly because CWDs face access challenges to typical science labs in secondary, higher secondary and university settings. Access barriers may prevent students from gaining knowledge, demonstrating knowledge, and fully participating in lab activities.

We designed an Assistive Technology, SAlly (short for science accessibility or science ally), to address these challenges as part of the . It uses sensors to measure liquids in a beaker accurately. Thus, using the current prototype of SAlly, a visually impaired student can:

Identify various chemicals using accessible labels on the containers
Independently measure and pour out the required quantity of a liquid.

Ongoing work

We conducted user studies of our prototype with visually impaired students and their teachers in a school in Goa. Based on the feedback, we plan to refine the project to achieve these objectives:

Categorise the science experiments in Grades 6-12 in the NCERT curriculum so that similar experiments can be grouped and made accessible using the same technological innovation.
Modify and enhance the existing prototype to enable visually impaired students to independently pour out accurate volumes and identify a change in the colour of a chemical as a result of a reaction.
Create a lab manual that enables blind students to utilise our device to carry out experiments and for their educators to guide them.

We will evaluate existing sensors and smart devices that can identify changes in the colour of a liquid and incorporate the appropriate one in our prototype. We will then internally test the prototype with BITS students, followed by user testing with visually impaired students and their teachers in different contexts.

This project is supported by

Integrating Accessibility Topics in Computing Education

Fri, 24 Mar 2023 15:00:00 +0530

Integrating Accessibility in a Mobile App Development Course

Wed, 01 Mar 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Inclusive Thinking Questionnaire: Preliminary Results

Tue, 01 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Teaching Accessibility in India: A Work in Progress

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Teaching Digital Accessibility through Serious Games

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 12:45:18 +0530

Background

The estimates that more than a billion people live with some form of disability. The mandates countries to “… promote the design, development, production, and distribution of accessible information and communications technologies and systems…”. To accomplish this, concepts and skills needed to develop accessible products and services must be included in computing education. Software companies like , , , and emphasize making their products accessible, and accessibility often features as a preferred skill in their job postings. For instance, a current for a Software Engineer position specifies “Experience developing accessible technologies” as a preferred qualification.

The Problem

Despite such increasing awareness in the software industry about accessibility in the recent years, many . Software professionals point to for this gap in implementing accessibility.

According to the , the main barriers to teaching accessibility include the lack of clear learning objectives about accessibility and their lack of knowledge about accessibility. Also, most instructors who teach accessibility have a background in human-computer interaction (HCI) and related fields and teach these topics in specialized courses. This indicates that other instructors may find it challenging to build their expertise and to incorporate accessibility topics in “mainstream” CS courses.

Our Contribution

We have developed fun, self-paced learning interventions, in the form of three sets of games:

Accessibility Awareness: (a) a special version of Wordle that asks you to guess a five-letter word, and tells you how it relates to accessibility, and (b) a game that asks you to burst the bubbles that carry a myth about accessibility, while saving the ones that carry a fact.
Access Quest: A role playing game that helps you learn WCAG guidelines about accessibility by solving puzzles and challenges a software developer may face in a day-to-day life.
Bug Hunter: A race against time game with a goal to find as many accessibility bugs in a web page as possible. The game is designed to assess your knowledge of WCAG guidelines.

You can try out these games at

We welcome your feedback and suggestion.

This project is supported by the

and BITS Pilani Research Initiation Grant.