[nfbcs] Question About Accessibility of Design/Mockup/Wire Framing Tools

[David Andrews]

I suspect this will be a tough one.  My experience is that most 
design tools are inaccessible.  Most people approach design visually, 
and the rapid prototyping tools tend to also be visual, so 
inaccessible on input side, and often output is inaccessible too, 
they just make quick and dirty pictures.  Consequently, they can't 
show specific accessibility things, that is they can do pictures of a 
design layout for accessibility, but couldn't demonstrate things functuionally.

Hope that makes sense...

Dave

At 02:05 PM 9/9/2014, you wrote:
>Hi,
>
>My name is Cindy, and I just joined the list.
>
>I am starting a Ph.D. program in Human Centered Design at the
>University of Washington in a couple of weeks and am brainstorming
>what I want to research this year.
>
>Currently, I am interested in the state of design and mockup tools,
>and whether they provide adequate options to educate designers about
>features they can include to make their prototypes accessible, to
>hopefully encourage the ultimate design to be accessible.
>
>I know this is a CS list and not a designers list. I am very new to cs
>as my background is in psychology. But I am curious if any of you have
>successfully worked with a design or mockup tool, sometimes referred
>to as wire framing tools, etc.
>
>I am interested in downloading some and checking them out. I have
>heard of Axure and Balsamiq and just downloaded a free and open source
>tool called Pencil. At first glance, it doesn't seem to be that
>accessible, but I know that some experimenting could reap some
>results.
>
>I know that many design tools are inherently visual, and that may play
>to a lack of accessibility, but I wanted to poll some people who
>probably know a few things to see if you have any advice for me.
>
>I am not just interested in finding a moderately accessible design
>tool to work with myself, but in evaluating tools to learn what types
>of accessibility options they give designers. I will be conducting a
>research project where students in a design class will have to
>evaluate such aspects of a few design tools of their choice, and I
>plan on analyzing the qualitative data, but I would like to be as
>involved as I possibly can.
>
>If you have advice of other venues on which I can ask questions, or
>places that have pretty good documentation of accessibility of various
>programs (I have found documentation somewhat lacking so far) that
>would be great!
>
>Thanks so much for any feedback you can provide! I am looking forward
>to starting coding (another topic in itself).
>
>Cindy
>
>
>
>--
>Cindy Bennett
>Graduate Student, University of Washington
>Human Centered Design and Engineering
>
>Treasurer of the Greater Seattle Chapter and of the National
>Federation of the Blind of Washington
>Affiliates of the National Federation of the Blind
>
>clb5590 at gmail.com

         David Andrews and long white cane Harry.
E-Mail:  dandrews at visi.com or david.andrews at nfbnet.org