Investigating the use of extensions for browsers to improve the accessibility of websites

Abstract

The Internet started out as a started out as a dream of a computer scientist working at MIT who imagined a world where anyone could use a computer to connect to the rest of the world. It is nowadays used for almost anything, from chatting with friends and family abroad to buying a car from another country, to viewing live-streams of Earth from satellites. The amount of users using the Internet is growing every year and the age range of Internet users is also expanding. This means that there is an increase in users like young children and older adults getting connected to the world through the Internet. As such web designers and extension developers must see that access to the Internet to both of these extremes is not limited as this would discourage them from using the Internet. This study’s aim is to find accessibility features older adults need but lack to be comfortable using the Internet and to use the information gathered to build an artefact, in this case an extension for a web browser which will give better overall accessibility to the Internet. The extension will be a popup with a simple layout and will include accessibility features mentioned in web standards and others gained from feedback from surveys completed during the study as a result of a usability test process. The approach is user-centric as most of the data evaluated is collected from participants during the survey. They are to choose what features the artefact is to include as well as what the interface is to be like. The result of the research will thus be an artefact. In this case a browser extension, for older adults made by themselves through direct communication during development.