Accessibility features of developmental platforms: Towards developing accessible mobile applications with cross-platform, research challenges and opportunities

Shoaib, Muhammad; Fitzpatrick, Donal; Pitt, Ian

Accessibility features of developmental platforms: Towards developing accessible mobile applications with cross-platform, research challenges and opportunities

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Published Version

Date

2024

Authors

Shoaib, Muhammad

Fitzpatrick, Donal

Pitt, Ian

Publisher

DEIMS2024

Abstract

Mobile application development is a process of designing and developing smartphone-based applications for several platforms i.e., Android, iOS, etc. Mobile application development platforms can be categorised as native and cross-platform, each offering resources, frameworks, and tools to developers so they can develop smartphone-based applications using them. Native platforms concentrate on specific applications designed expressly for a particular platform i.e., Android or iOS. Crossplatform allows developers to develop applications with a single codebase that can work across multiple platforms. Examples include Xamarin and Unity. In this study, we have compared the accessibility features offered by Xamarin and Unity with those offered by native platforms. We analyzed the accessibility features offered by the iOS and Android platforms to determined whether and to what extent Xamarin and Unity offer the same accessibility capabilities. This analysis shows that numerous functionalities are shared by native iOS and Android APIs, however, some of them are not included in Xamarin and Unity. They also do not provide the implementation of fundamental APIs. This will require additional work by developers to write platformspecific code in native APIs to access the unavailable APIs. We have provided a comparative analysis of these platforms. Important accessibility aspects are highlighted that may prove useful for researchers and developers who are working to create accessible apps.

Keywords

Crossplatform , Xamarin , Unity

Citation

Shoaib, M., Fitzpatrick, D. and Pitt, I. (2024) 'Accessibility features of developmental platforms: Towards developing accessible mobile applications with cross-platform, research challenges and opportunities', 5th International Workshop on Digitization and E-Inclusion in Mathematics and Science 2024 (DEIMS2024), Nihon University, Tokyo, Japan, 15-17 February, pp. 153-162. Available at: https://workshop.sciaccess.net/deims2024/ (Accessed: 12 March 2024)