demonstration

Demo: Expanding Blocks4All with Variables and Functions

Authors:

Jacqueline Shao Yi Ong,

Nana Adwoa O. Amoah,

Alison E. Garrett-Engele,

Mariella Irene Page,

Katherine R. McCarthy,

Lauren R. MilneAuthors Info & Claims

ASSETS '19: Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

Pages 645 - 647

https://doi.org/10.1145/3308561.3354588

Published: 24 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Blocks-based programming environments are often inaccessible for children with visual impairments who cannot interact with their visual components. We present our work on expanding Blocks4All, a touchscreen-based blocks-based programming environment that is accessible with screen readers, to improve its accessibility and expand its functionality. We describe our designs to support more complex functionality such as modifiable blocks, variables and functions and provide our code to encourage others to make their own environments accessible. We plan to evaluate the updated interface with children with low vision participating in a robotics competition

References

[1]

Google Inc. Accessible Blockly. Retrieved from https://blockly-demo.appspot.com/static/demos/accessible/index.html

[2]

Varsha Koushik, Darren Guinness, and Shaun K. Kane. 2019. StoryBlocks: A Tangible Programming Game To Create Accessible Audio Stories. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19), 492:1--492:12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300722

Digital Library

[3]

Varsha Koushik and Clayton Lewis. 2016. An Accessible Blocks Language: Work in Progress. In Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16), 317--318. https://doi.org/10.1145/2982142.2982150

Digital Library

[4]

Richard E. Ladner. 2015. Design for user empowerment. interactions 22, 2: 24--29. https://doi.org/10.1145/2723869

Digital Library

[5]

Stephanie Ludi and Mary Spencer. 2017. Design Considerations to Increase Block-based Language Accessibility for Blind Programmers Via Blockly. Journal of Visual Languages and Sentient Systems 3, 1: 119--124. https://doi.org/10.18293/VLSS2017-013

[6]

Lauren R. Milne, Catherine M. Baker, and Richard E. Ladner. 2017. Blocks4All Demonstration: A Blocks-Based Programming Environment for Blind Children. In Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17), 313--314. https://doi.org/10.1145/3132525.3134774

Digital Library

[7]

Lauren R. Milne and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. Blocks4All: Overcoming Accessibility Barriers to Blocks Programming for Children with Visual Impairments. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18), 69:1--69:10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173643

Digital Library

[8]

Nicolas Villar, Cecily Morrison, Daniel Cletheroe, Tim Regan, Anja Thieme, and Greg Saul. 2019. Physical Programming for Blind and Low Vision Children at Scale. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '19), INT003:1--INT003:4. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3313241

Digital Library

[9]

Amber Wagner, Ramaraju Rudraraju, Srinivasa Datla, Avishek Banerjee, Mandar Sudame, and Jeff Gray. 2012. Programming by Voice: A Hands-free Approach for Motorically Challenged Children. In CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '12), 2087--2092. https://doi.org/10.1145/2212776.2223757

Digital Library

[10]

Turn on and practice VoiceOver on iPad. Apple Support. Retrieved July 10, 2019 from https://support.apple.com/guide/ipad/turn-on-and-practice-voiceover-ipad9a246898/ios

[11]

Vision accessibility features in iOS. Apple Support. Retrieved July 10, 2019 from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210076

[12]

Use Switch Control to navigate your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch. Apple Support. Retrieved July 10, 2019 from https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201370

[13]

Wonder Workshop | Home of cue, Dash and Dot, robots that help kids learn to code. Retrieved June 27, 2019 from https://www.makewonder.com/

[14]

Wonder Workshop | Home of cue, Dash and Dot, robots that help kids learn to code. Wonder Workshop - US. Retrieved July 10, 2019 from https://www.makewonder.com/classroom/robotics-competition/

[15]

Accessible color palette builder. Retrieved July 2, 2019 from https://toolness.github.io/accessible-color-matrix/

[16]

Sim Daltonism. Michel Fortin. Retrieved July 2, 2019 from https://michelf.ca/projects/sim-daltonism

[17]

Wonder Workshop | Home of cue, Dash and Dot, robots that help kids learn to code. Wonder Workshop - US. Retrieved July 8, 2019 from https://www.makewonder.com/apps/blockly/

Cited By

Mountapmbeme ALudi S(2025)Designing accessible block-based programming environments for persons with visual impairmentsUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-025-01200-yOnline publication date: 19-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-025-01200-y
Mountapmbeme A(2022)Understanding and Addressing Accessibility Barriers Faced by People with Visual Impairments on Block-Based Programming Environmentsundefined10.12794/metadc2048605Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc2048605
Okafor O(2022)Helping Students with Upper Limb Motor Impairments Program in a Block-Based Programming Environment Using Voiceundefined10.12794/metadc1985949Online publication date: Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc1985949
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Demo: Expanding Blocks4All with Variables and Functions
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Accessibility
    1. Accessibility technologies

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CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Blocks-based programming environments are a popular tool to teach children to program, but they rely heavily on visual metaphors and are therefore not fully accessible for children with visual impairments. We evaluated existing blocks-based environments ...
Blocks4All: Making Blocks-Based Programming Languages Accessible for Children with Visual Impairments
SIGCSE '19: Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

Block-based programming environments such as Scratch are designed to make programming easier to learn for both children and adults. Unfortunately, these environments rely so heavily on visual features that they are inaccessible to people who are blind ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

ASSETS '19: Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 2019

730 pages

ISBN:9781450366762

DOI:10.1145/3308561

General Chair:
Jeffrey P. Bigham
Carnegie Mellon University., USA
,
Program Chairs:
Shiri Azenkot
Cornell Tech, USA
,
Shaun K. Kane
University of Colorado Boulder, USA

Copyright © 2019 Owner/Author.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

Sponsors

SIGACCESS: ACM Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 October 2019

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Demonstration

Conference

ASSETS '19

Sponsor:

SIGACCESS

ASSETS '19: The 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

October 28 - 30, 2019

PA, Pittsburgh, USA

Acceptance Rates

ASSETS '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 41 of 158 submissions, 26%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%

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Citations

Cited By

Mountapmbeme ALudi S(2025)Designing accessible block-based programming environments for persons with visual impairmentsUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-025-01200-yOnline publication date: 19-Feb-2025
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-025-01200-y
Mountapmbeme A(2022)Understanding and Addressing Accessibility Barriers Faced by People with Visual Impairments on Block-Based Programming Environmentsundefined10.12794/metadc2048605Online publication date: Dec-2022
https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc2048605
Okafor O(2022)Helping Students with Upper Limb Motor Impairments Program in a Block-Based Programming Environment Using Voiceundefined10.12794/metadc1985949Online publication date: Aug-2022
https://doi.org/10.12794/metadc1985949
Mountapmbeme AOkafor OLudi S(2022)Accessible Blockly: An Accessible Block-Based Programming Library for People with Visual ImpairmentsProceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3517428.3544806(1-15)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3517428.3544806
Mountapmbeme AOkafor OLudi S(2022)Addressing Accessibility Barriers in Programming for People with Visual Impairments: A Literature ReviewACM Transactions on Accessible Computing10.1145/350746915:1(1-26)Online publication date: 21-Mar-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3507469
Mountapmbeme ALudi S(2021)How Teachers of the Visually Impaired Compensate with the Absence of Accessible Block-Based LanguagesProceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3441852.3471221(1-10)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3441852.3471221
Mountapmbeme ALudi S(2020)Investigating Challenges Faced by Learners with Visual Impairments using Block-Based Programming/Hybrid EnvironmentsProceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3373625.3417998(1-4)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3373625.3417998

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