Accessibility issues in establishing awareness on remote collaborative software development

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the work dynamics of software development teams with the sudden adoption and subsequent continuation of remote work. New practices were adopted to maintain relationships between team members, mediated by computational tools. However, this presents an additional challenge for people with visual or hearing impairments. This study identifies different experiences of professionals with and without these disabilities in maintaining awareness when working remotely. To achieve this objective, 93 responses were collected through an online form from professionals, with and without visual or hearing impairments, and the supervision of a collaboration tool, among the most mentioned due to the lack of accessibility for people with visual impairments, using the Semiotic Inspection Method with Screen Reader (MIS-LT). The results point to different groups’ experiences with the use of collaborative tools on the social aspects of remote collaboration and an assessment of the communicability and accessibility of the inspected tool.

Keywords

• Accessibility
• inclusion
• awareness
• remote work
• inspection
• collaboration