The Cooperate Assistive Teamwork Environment for Software Description Languages.

Area of Science:

• Software Engineering
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Accessibility

Background:

• Graphical notations like Unified Modeling Language (UML) are prevalent in software engineering but pose accessibility challenges for visually impaired individuals.
• Existing solutions for textual notations require manual synchronization, hindering efficient teamwork.
• Inclusion of visually impaired professionals in software engineering teams is often impeded by inaccessible design tools.

Purpose of the Study:

• To outline requirements for an accessible, language-aware teamwork environment.
• To present the assistive implementation plan for a system named Cooperate.
• To facilitate seamless collaboration between visually impaired and non-visually impaired software engineers.

Main Methods:

• Defining requirements for an accessible and language-aware software engineering environment.
• Developing an assistive implementation strategy for the Cooperate system.
• Planning an evaluation with an industrial software engineering team comprising individuals with and without visual impairments.

Main Results:

• The paper details the requirements and implementation plan for Cooperate, an assistive tool.
• The proposed solution addresses the synchronization issues of existing textual notations.
• An evaluation framework is established to assess the system's effectiveness in a real-world industrial setting.

Conclusions:

• Accessible tools are crucial for inclusive software engineering practices.
• The Cooperate system aims to bridge the accessibility gap in collaborative software development.
• Future work will involve evaluating the practical impact of Cooperate on team dynamics and productivity.