Abstract
The choice of an interface platform to develop mobile applications may have important implications to how accessible the resulting product can be for visually-disabled users. This paper aimed to analyze four platforms to develop native and web-hybrid mobile Android applications, and to verify the adequacy of their interface components to implement mobile applications, in order to identify the main accessibility problems that could be encountered by developers when using them, and the main strategies to overcome those issues. We built 5 prototypes of mobile applications with the aim of adhering as much as possible to accessibility recommendations. The applications were built using techniques of native applications developed with Android Studio with and without Web components and hybrid development using the frameworks Apache Cordova, Ionic and Appcelerator Titanium. We then performed an accessibility inspection of a sample of 30 Android interface components present in 5 prototypes of mobile applications, to verify their adequacy for working with screen readers. The results showed that the prototypes developed using web components were more compatible with accessibility criteria in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) and with the screen reader TalkBack. The most frequent accessibility problems in native components occurred in tables, headings and multimedia elements. We conclude by showing initial evidence that webbased components in hybrid applications developed using webhybrid and native with embedded web components currently have better support for accessibility than applications with only native components.
Highlights
Enabling disabled people to effectively participating in society by means of digital resources is fundamental to their lives
In a previous study performed by the authors of the present paper [8], we investigated the adequacy of three different types of interface components implemented using purely native Android components, hybrid applications implemented with Apache Cordova, and applications with occasional embedded web components into a mostly native application
The results of the analyses reported in this paper presented positive aspects related to the implementation of mobile applications using web-based components, both in the case of hybrid applications using Cordova, Appcelerator Titanium and Ionic, and in the case of native applications with embedded web components
Summary
Enabling disabled people to effectively participating in society by means of digital resources is fundamental to their lives. This includes providing access to services, products and information in order for them to be more independent and confident to have their rights preserved and to be active citizens. Different guidelines provide developers with resources to develop more accessible applications. Different approaches and platforms can be used to build applications for mobile devices, conceiving different types of applications. There is not a single best solution for mobile development: each approach has its weaknesses and strengths, in terms of performance, interaction and development capabilities. Each implementation approach brings important implications for design decisions, for accessibility
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