Parsons problems have become a mainstay of computer science education. They are heavily used among students, especially in K-12 and provide a small puzzle-like experience for students to practice their skills. Today, while prior work has explored complex issues with accessibility and block languages in general, the 2024 changes to accessibility regulations by the U.S. Department of Justice includes new rules around mobile platforms. These rules are ill-defined and in need of evaluation. In this work, we make several contributions. First, we conducted an evaluation of existing blocks with respect to their regulatory compliance and discuss a new blocks technology that we developed that meets these new mobile guidelines. Second, we conducted three empirical studies using Parsons problems to evaluate the usability of the technology with teachers of the visually impaired (n = 32), high-school students with diverse disabilities (n = 28), and high-school students with blindness or low vision (n = 13).

Blocks-based programming languages (BBPLs) have proven effective for instructing early learners in programming. Unlike text-based languages, BBPLs eliminate the need to memorize syntax rules by enforcing correct program structure through block assembly. However, the visual nature of BBPLs can pose challenges for children with visual impairments and blindness (VI). Moreover, the existing BBPLs tailored for children with VI are rarely embraced by sighted children due to their limited capabilities. To explore the creation of an inclusive BBPL that can be used by both children with and without VI, we devised a web-based BBPL platform with keyboard accessibility functionalities and personalized audio cues through an incorporated screen reader. Within this platform, called Grid-world, students engage with basic programming concepts, including iteration and selection, through entertaining games and animations-such as navigating a character within a 2D grid space. Notably, Grid-world accommodates children with VI without the need for extra hardware or assistive devices. We conducted two empirical assessments of Grid-world involving participants with and without VI. The observational analysis of participant interaction and survey responses illuminated areas for enhancement. We describe the rationale behind Grid-world's design and accessibility features, incorporating findings from experimental studies, including participants' feedback on the accessibility features.

The growing interest in teaching Computer Science (CS) to K-12 students has led to the development of blocks-based programming languages (BBPLs) for young students where a program can be created by connecting blocks in a structured way. One of the benefits of a BBPL is removing the necessity to recall the syntax rules of a language. However, the visual nature of these languages makes learning and creating code difficult for children with visual impairments and blindness (VIB). Although a few BBPLs were designed for children with VIB, such environments are rarely used by sighted children. Therefore, to investigate the requirements for designing and implementing an accessible blocks-based programming environment that can be used by both students with and without VIB, we developed a BBPL environment for middle school children. The environment consists of a two-dimensional grid where a character can be moved by creating a simple blocks program. Our future plans include performing several empirical experiments to evaluate our BBPL, including the educational impact of the environment on all students and accessibility support for students with VIB. To perform the study, we also plan to prepare lessons for training the students. The results of the study will inform the design of future BBPL environments, as well as contribute toward broadening participation in computing by enabling children with visual impairments to participate fully in CS education opportunities.

Vibration plays a significant role in the way users interact with touchscreens. For many users, vibration affords tactile alerts and other enhancements. For eyes-free users and users with visual impairments, vibration can also serve a more primary role in the user interface, such as indicating streets on maps, conveying information about graphs, or even specifying basic graphics. However, vibration is rarely used in current user interfaces beyond basic cuing. Furthermore, designers and developers who do actually use vibration more extensively are often unable to determine the exact properties of the vibration signals they are implementing, due to out-of-the-box software and hardware limitations. We make two contributions in this work. First, we investigate the contextual properties of touchscreen vibrations and how vibrations can be used to effectively convey traditional, embossed elements, such as dashes and dots. To do so, we developed an open source, Android-based library to generate vibrations that are perceptually salient and intuitive, improving upon existing vibration libraries. Second, we conducted a user study with 26 blind or visually impaired users to evaluate and categorize the effects with respect to traditional tactile line profiles. We have established a range of vibration effects that can be reliably generated by our haptic library and are perceptible and distinguishable by users.

The blind and visually impaired community is significantly underrepresented in computer science. Students who wish to enter the discipline must overcome significant technological and educational barriers to succeed. In an attempt to help this population, we are engaged in a three-year research project to build an educational infrastructure for blind and visually impaired middle and high school students. Our primary research goal is to begin forging a multi-sensory educational infrastructure for the blind across the United States. We present here two preliminary results from this research: 1) a new auditory programming environment called Sodbeans, a programming language called Hop, and a multi-sensory (sound and touch) curriculum, and 2) an empirical study of our first summer workshop with the blind students. Results show that students reported a significant increase in programming self-efficacy after participating in our camp.