A study into ideal software development for the disabled
Kivimäki, Santeri (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023053016222
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023053016222
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this study was to survey the problems that the target group – the disabled, might have or encounter in their daily lives. The goal was to delve into first-hand experiences and examine the underlying conditions that have an impact on the accessibility of the software and parallelly providing some solutions to the software usage issues to display software usage ability. Since the first-hand experiences turned out to be too difficult to gather (due to GDPR reasons) an alternative way for data collection was used (Subjective interpretation of recorded user experience).
This study was created within the definition of disability of CDC in mind, while still focusing on the W3C Accessibility guidelines to bring accessibility results to the increasingly more prevalent disability problem across the globe.
In this thesis, an understanding of the ideal software development process was established by combining already existing software development framework paradigms.
Also, various manifestations of disability and impairment were studied, analyzed and conjointly, together with their existing, globally accepted classifications reflected upon software usage regarding various software use stages – resulting in a “User challenges – heatmap”.
With the help of a heatmap it was possible to cherry pick the most severe user challenges, for which in this thesis has been provided various suggestions in how to enhance the so called “ideal” software development framework in a way that would also take into consideration the needs of the disabled. And possibly even to capitalize on these findings when implementing software engineering education.
The thesis is built to provide a chronological step-by-step constructed view of the current situation, the problem, the processes that take place to solve this and the solutions suggested in solving the problem, and the results.
This study was created within the definition of disability of CDC in mind, while still focusing on the W3C Accessibility guidelines to bring accessibility results to the increasingly more prevalent disability problem across the globe.
In this thesis, an understanding of the ideal software development process was established by combining already existing software development framework paradigms.
Also, various manifestations of disability and impairment were studied, analyzed and conjointly, together with their existing, globally accepted classifications reflected upon software usage regarding various software use stages – resulting in a “User challenges – heatmap”.
With the help of a heatmap it was possible to cherry pick the most severe user challenges, for which in this thesis has been provided various suggestions in how to enhance the so called “ideal” software development framework in a way that would also take into consideration the needs of the disabled. And possibly even to capitalize on these findings when implementing software engineering education.
The thesis is built to provide a chronological step-by-step constructed view of the current situation, the problem, the processes that take place to solve this and the solutions suggested in solving the problem, and the results.