New Debugging Tool Helps Makes Apps and Websites Accessible
March 03, 2021
With millions still sheltering from the COVID-19 threat, there never has been a more important time to ensure mobile apps, websites, and web apps are accessible — and a new solution from Evinced hopes to empower developers to achieve that.
What is the scale of the problem?
When it comes to accessibility, the World Health Organization (WHO) says there are more than 1 billion people worldwide living with some form of disability. That statistic alone should reinforce how important it has been that mobile apps and websites are built to be accessible, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The problem is that perhaps 70% of mobile apps in some key categories have accessibility problems, some of which (such as support for pointing devices) may not be so easy to catch. (A Deque report claims 62% of accessibility practitioners surveyed in March/April 2020 said COVID-19 increased the awareness and impact of accessibility on digital channels.)
Evinced is a free Xcode-compatible debugging tool aimed at enterprise IT developers and designed to help identify accessibility problems within apps, websites, and web apps.
What is Evinced
Evinced is implemented during the software development process and provides those building the code with alerts at different stages of that process.
"The root cause of accessibility problems is the fact that large parts of the web are not machine readable; instead, they were designed for visual consumption,” Evinced founder and CEO Navin Thadani said in a statement.
“Evinced has developed technology that visually analyzes websites and applications, builds a structural semantic model, and then compares it to the actual code to detect potential accessibility issues. This fundamentally new technology approach enables us to significantly outperform legacy approaches.”
Unlike most code-first checking tools, Evinced uses artificial intelligence to analyze both the inherent code as well as the user interface. In the event a coding problem is identified, the solution is smart enough to suggest ways to resolve it, leaving developers in control.
Source: Computer World