Emily Maria Giurleo
MIT EECS Undergraduate Research and Innovation Scholar
Keyboard Accessibility in Block-Based Coding Environments
2016–2017
Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
- Systems and Networking
Harold Abelson
App Inventor is a website that allows users to make their own Android apps using a block-based coding language. While App Inventor has almost 3 million users it contains few accessibility features. In particular there is no way for a user to navigate the block workspace on the App Inventor site without using their mouse; this poses a significant problem for users who use screen readers or who cannot operate a mouse. I will design and implement a set of keyboard shortcuts that allow users to operate the App Inventor website in a way that is intuitive and customizable and evaluate my solution by conducting user tests.
I’m participating in the SuperUROP program because I want the experience of organizing and participating in a more long-term project. In my experience I’ve learned much more about software engineering by undertaking projects or working on an existing code base and I want to continue to gain experiences like these in my last year of MIT.