Accessibility challenges and tool features

Using evidence from a survey of 49 IBM Web developers we explore two concerns: barriers to the developers' designing accessible Web-based products, and what value they felt specific features in an "accessibility" tool might have. They found designing for accessibility difficult, but more surprisingly, they found using the test tools and finding technology work-arounds equally hard. Testing and finding work-arounds were also the most time consuming aspects of accessibility, while design was not. When asked about tool features, all agreed that a checklist of automatically detected problems and an explanation of each problem were the most important. There were fifteen features in all, and the more experienced the developer, the more they valued the other features, particularly being able to experience a site as someone with a particular disability would, and being able to pinpoint a problem on the rendered view of a page. The survey results suggest existing tools are often unclear, cumbersome, and incomplete with respect to the standards that must be met.