DIY Assistive Technology

Faculty Amy Hurst

As the Internet and web-enabled technologies become ubiquitous and there is greater need for web-related jobs, there is a lack of diversity and representation by persons with disabilities. One factor contributing to this is that the production of web technologies presents various accessibility barriers for individuals that are blind or low vision. CSS and visual styling are areas of particular stumbling blocks that lacks easy, accessible, and comprehensive tools for nonvisual CSS validation. CSS is a core language and component of the web used to describe visual representations and due to the visual nature of CSS nonvisual developers struggle to with its use: often time relying on sighted third party member to assist with validating their CSS. In order to striving for a more diverse participation, better accessibility support, and greater independence of blind or low vision web developers we evaluated existing CSS tool to aim for creating a accessible CSS validation tool that would allow blind and low vision web developers to build, test, and produce websites and web applications with greater confidence and independence.

You can read the abstract of her 2011 paper at researchgate.

Check out Amy’s presentation discussing DIY practices for accessibility.