Challenges of automatically evaluating rich internet applications accessibility

Abstract

Over the past decade, the Web has provided users with interactivity through Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). However, most applications still have not implemented accessible solutions in their components. Apart from the high level of difficulty of manual assessments of accessibility in RIAs, such applications lack automatic tools that support the process. The dynamic nature of web content leads to the updating of automated tools to include techniques that identify and classify the several components that comprise RIAs. This paper discusses the state-of-the-art and limitations of current automatic tools that assess the accessibility of RIAs, and presents a meta-review of multidisciplinary techniques towards motivating research on improvements in such tools. The study contributes to the availability of accessible RIAs for disabled users, which include components with recent technologies and innovative features in web interfaces.