demonstration

Making the Blockly Library Accessible via Touchscreen

Authors:

Logan B. Caraco,

Sebastian Deibel,

Yufan Ma,

Lauren R. MilneAuthors Info & Claims

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

Pages 648 - 650

https://doi.org/10.1145/3308561.3354589

Published: 24 October 2019 Publication History

Get Access

Abstract

Block-based programming environments are a popular way to learn programming. Many of these libraries, including Scratch and MIT's App Inventor, are built on the Blockly library from Google. Unfortunately, programs built with the Blockly library are currently not accessible for people with visual impairments. We describe two designs to make the Blockly library accessible using a screen reader on a touchscreen device.

References

[1]

Catherine M. Baker, Lauren R. Milne, and Richard E. Ladner. 2019. Understanding the Impact of TVIs on Technology Use and Selection by Children with Visual Impairments. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '19.

Google Scholar

[2]

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

Google Scholar

[3]

Google Inc. Android Accessibility Overview. Android Developers. Retrieved June 27, 2019 from https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/accessibili ty

Google Scholar

[4]

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

Google Scholar

[5]

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

Google Scholar

[6]

Clayton Lewis. 2014. Work in Progress Report: Nonvisual Visual Programming. Psychology of Programming Interest Group. Retrieved from http://users.sussex.ac.uk/~bend/ppig2014/14ppig2014_s ubmission_5.pdf

Google Scholar

[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

Google Scholar

[8]

Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Andrés Monroy- Hernández, Natalie Rusk, Evelyn Eastmond, Karen Brennan, Amon Millner, Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, Brian Silverman, and Yasmin Kafai. 2009. Scratch: Programming for All. Commun. ACM 52, 11: 60--67. https://doi.org/10.1145/1592761.1592779

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[9]

Emmanuel Schanzer, Sina Bahram, and Shriram Krishnamurthi. 2019. Accessible AST-Based Programming for Visually-Impaired Programmers. In Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE '19), 773--779. https://doi.org/10.1145/3287324.3287499

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[10]

Stephanie Ludi. 2015. Position paper: Towards making block-based programming accessible for blind users. In 2015 IEEE Blocks and Beyond Workshop (Blocks and Beyond), 67--69. https://doi.org/10.1109/BLOCKS.2015.7369005

Digital Library

Google Scholar

[11]

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

Google Scholar

[12]

w3c_wai. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Overview. Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Retrieved June 27, 2019 from https://www.w3.org/WAI/standards-guidelines/wcag/

Google Scholar

[13]

Code.org Computer Science Curriculum for Grades K-5. Code.org. Retrieved July 8, 2019 from https://code.org/student/elementary

Google Scholar

[14]

Vision Accessibility - iPad. Apple. Retrieved July 8, 2019 from https://www.apple.com/accessibility/ipad/vision/

Google Scholar

Cited By

View all

Stefik AAllee WContreras GKluthe THoffman ABlaser BLadner RStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Accessible to Whom? Bringing Accessibility to BlocksProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630770(1286-1292)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630770
Cha YFigueira IAyala JEdwards EGarcia Jvan der Hoek ABranham S(2024)"Do You Want Me to Participate or Not?": Investigating the Accessibility of Software Development Meetings for Blind and Low Vision ProfessionalsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642130(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642130
Suandique TBeça PAresta M(2023)“We Can Create Our Own Games” : An analysis of programming initiation activities for young adults2023 18th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)10.23919/CISTI58278.2023.10211540(1-6)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.23919/CISTI58278.2023.10211540
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Making the Blockly Library Accessible via Touchscreen
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Accessibility

Recommendations

Accessible Blockly: An Accessible Block-Based Programming Library for People with Visual Impairments
ASSETS '22: Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

The visual and mouse-centric nature of block-based programming environments generally make them inaccessible and challenging to use by users with visual impairments who rely on assistive technologies to interact with computers. This prevents these users ...
Drawing and Understanding Diagrams: An Accessible Approach Dedicated to Blind People
Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. User and Context Diversity
Abstract
Our research activity focuses on accessibility for document design and consultation, especially in the field of computer science. In this article, we focus on the design and reading of class diagrams according to the UML standard. Our goal is to ...
Making touch-based kiosks accessible to blind users through simple gestures

Touch-based interaction is becoming increasingly popular and is commonly used as the main interaction paradigm for self-service kiosks in public spaces. Touch-based interaction is known to be visually intensive, and current non-haptic touch-display ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

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

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.

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 24 October 2019

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Demonstration

Funding Sources

Google LLC

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%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

9
Total Citations
View Citations
211
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)12
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3

Reflects downloads up to 03 Mar 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all

Stefik AAllee WContreras GKluthe THoffman ABlaser BLadner RStephenson BStone JBattestilli LRebelsky SShoop L(2024)Accessible to Whom? Bringing Accessibility to BlocksProceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3626252.3630770(1286-1292)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626252.3630770
Cha YFigueira IAyala JEdwards EGarcia Jvan der Hoek ABranham S(2024)"Do You Want Me to Participate or Not?": Investigating the Accessibility of Software Development Meetings for Blind and Low Vision ProfessionalsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642130(1-17)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642130
Suandique TBeça PAresta M(2023)“We Can Create Our Own Games” : An analysis of programming initiation activities for young adults2023 18th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI)10.23919/CISTI58278.2023.10211540(1-6)Online publication date: 20-Jun-2023
https://doi.org/10.23919/CISTI58278.2023.10211540
Rocha FCorreia FNeto IPires AGuerreiro JGuerreiro TNicolau H(2023)Coding Together: On Co-located and Remote Collaboration between Children with Mixed-Visual AbilitiesProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581261(1-14)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581261
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)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
Chen TSu ILee J(2022)Case Study: Design Strategies for Enabling Visual Application Blocks of Bluetooth LibraryIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2022.317531610(52630-52654)Online publication date: 2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2022.3175316
Utreras EPontelli E(2021)Introductory programming and young learners with visual disabilities: a reviewUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-021-00830-2Online publication date: 13-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-021-00830-2

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Cited By

Index Terms

Recommendations

Accessible Blockly: An Accessible Block-Based Programming Library for People with Visual Impairments

Drawing and Understanding Diagrams: An Accessible Approach Dedicated to Blind People

Making touch-based kiosks accessible to blind users through simple gestures