The document proposes an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) that allows for the creation, simulation, and assessment of accessible web applications. It reviews existing IDEs and identifies limitations. The presented IDE incorporates plugins for NetBeans that include an accessible widget palette, simulation tools, and assessment tools. A case study demonstrates using the IDE to build an accessible web app, simulate impairments, and generate an accessibility report. The conclusion is that the IDE can accelerate development while enforcing accessibility best practices.

1. Providing an IDE for creating,
simulating and assessing
accessible applications
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2. Overview
• Introduction
• State of art analysis
• Methodology
• Case study: Building an accessible web
application
• Conclusions
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3. Paper objectives
• To provide the required knowledge on
relevant IDEs that will influence the design
and specifications of the envisioned tool
based on best practices and current
implementations and reusing software
components or systems if necessary,
available as open source products.
• To present the Integrated Development
Environment (IDE) which allows the creation,
simulation and assessment of accessible Web
applications.
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4. State of art
• To fulfill the first objective, we reviewed the most
representative development platforms for building accessible
Web applications and concluded that there is no such available
platform guiding developers through the whole procedure:
– IBM rational application developer for WebSphere software
• What can be seen as a drawback about this IDE is that it is a
commercial one.
– Ajax tools framework project home
• The downside of this approach is that it relies almost entirely on
AJAX.
– CodeLobster PHP edition
• Developers have to buy low-cost plugins for it to add additional
library and framework functionality (such as auto-complete,
syntax-highlighting, command help, and other plugin-specific
features). In addition CodeLobster is too slow to open big projects
and it’s hard to find a file in the file list.
– Dojo IDE
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5. Methodology
• Development and installation of several
NetBeans plug-ins that help with the
development, simulation and assessment of
web-based applications:
– A palette with WAI-ARIA enabled widgets from
jQuery, MooTools, and Fluid Infusion libraries
such as datepicker, button, etc. as plug-in in
NetBeans platform (version 7.0.1).
– DIAS for simulation as plug-in in NetBeans
platform.
– WaaT for assessment as plug-in in NetBeans
platform.
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6. AEGIS Workshop and International Conference, Brussels

7. Building an accessible web-based app
• Development phase of application:
– HTML code
– Several WAI-ARIA enabled web
components are dragged and dropped
from NetBeans component palette
– Finalization of the application's code
• Preview of the application:
Via the embedded html browser using DJ
Native Swing Library
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9. Building an accessible web-based app
• Simulation phase of the application:
– Using the ACCESSIBLE DIAS (Disability
Impairment Approximation Simulator)
functionality that has been already installed
into NetBeans as plug-in.
• Assessment phase of application using:
– the ACCESSIBLE WaaT (Web accessibility
assessment tool)
– and a specific user/persona
• Results of the assessment:
– Pdf or earl (xml) report
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10. AEGIS Workshop and International Conference, Brussels

11. WaaT assessment results
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12. Conclusions
• This IDE accelerates Web development:
– it hides complexity from novice users
– it eliminates many tedious tasks for more experienced developers
• This IDE could also serve as a demonstration of WAI-ARIA
enabled widgets and generally for Web programming techniques,
practices and architectures.
• We have used the IDE in a testing environment for debugging
purposes, but a greater scale evaluation has not been done yet.
– We plan such an evaluation will be made possible in the near
future, when a private alpha of the system will be held providing
us with valuable feedback from developers.
– In general, the tool did meet our expectations providing a usable
IDE for developing accessible Web applications.
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