Responsive inclusive design (RiD): a new model for inclusive software development

Abstract

The design and development of technological solutions based on software for all types of people, including people with disabilities, is still a pending issue in most software application development projects today. Situations like the 2020 pandemic drastically reflect how people with disabilities tend to be left outside the application design and construction guidelines. There are multiple initiatives and previous works that advocate user involvement from the beginning of the project; however, in this work, we go a step further by presenting a model for designing and constructing software applications (RiD—Responsive inclusive Design) defined for inclusive software. RiD extends the involvement of the user with disabilities to the entire software life cycle, in different roles, and taking into account the changing nature of the user profile in the evolution of the product. This article also presents the EDICO case study, an accessible and inclusive scientific editor for the Spanish National Organization of the Blind (ONCE), which was successfully implemented applying the RiD principles.