Accessibility challenges of hybrid mobile applications

Abstract

This paper presents the results of testing a hybrid mobile application with 5 print disabled university students. Three of the students were blind or near blind and two had normal vision but suffered from learning disabilities. While evaluating SpokenText Reader, an iOS smartphone application to aid the print disabled who study from audio recordings. The blind students encountered many accessibility barriers attributed to how hybrid mobile applications are treated by the access technology included in iOS 9. This research is significant since many organizations have utilized hybrid mobile applications to develop custom applications. While hybrid applications can allow for increased time to market, this increased time to market comes at the expense of the accessibility of an application to disabled people.