Accessibility in the Software Engineering (SE) Process and in Integrated Development Environments (IDEs): A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Software accessibility, once relatively unknown, is now recognized as both crucial and legally mandated, accumulating significant research attention in Computer Science. While various guidelines, methods, and tools have been developed, practical implementation still faces challenges, with persistent barriers in many products. Research often focuses on requirements engineering and evaluation, neglecting the implementation phase. While acknowledging the necessity of including accessibility throughout the engineering process, research on comprehensive approaches has been sparse, primarily focusing on requirements engineering and evaluation, neglecting implementation phase. We see integrating accessibility support into the core of design and development as a crucial step for improvements, revealing a need for integrating accessibility evaluation support into integrated development environments (IDEs). This paper aims to present a collection of techniques, methods and tools that support accessibility involvement within different stages of the engineering process, and additionally to provide a theoretical foundation for research and development of incorporating accessibility evaluation support within IDEs. Thereafter, we analyzed existing related Systematic Literature Reviews (SLRs) and complemented the findings with a new SLR. The study provides a solid base for advanced approaches in integrating accessibility into software engineering (SE).