Issues Blind Software Developers Experience When Using Software Development Tools

Abstract

Unfortunately many features of software development tools are not accessible by blind users. This forms a major obstacle for them to become professional software developers. On the other hand, many users cannot surpass this obstacle which prevents enough demand to form for tool developers to improve the current situation. Without understanding what accessibility problems there are for blind users, it would not be possible to develop appropriate assistive technologies. With this exploratory study, we investigate the issues blind software developers experience when using software development tools.