Accessibility of educational software: from evaluation to design guidelines

Abstract

Although researches, guidelines and laws have been elaborated during the last years about the accessibility of software, many educational products on the Italian market are still difficult or impossible to be used by students with disabilities. An evaluation grid, designed from the end-user's point of view, has been used with 70 educational software to test the real usability of these products with AT devices. Results show how the problem of accessibility is not yet understood by developers and producers. The purpose of this study was also to rise awareness in teachers about the accessibility topic it should be deleted, so that they increase the request of accessible software that can be used by students with different types of disability. This information is also related to disability issues, to AT devices and to the actual Italian Law. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.