Code Complexity Impact of Widgets Accessibility Implementation in JavaScript Open-Source Libraries

  • Willian Massami Watanabe UTFPR
  • Guilherme de Lemos UTFPR
  • Humberto Lídio Antonelli USP
  • Renata Pontin de Mattos Fortes USP
  • Gabriel Costa Silva UTFPR

Resumo


Widgets are part of many web applications and implement distinct interaction mechanisms, in reusable user interface components. However, implementing accessible widgets is a challenge, associated to different factors highlighted in the state-of-the-art, such as: lack of developers knowledge of accessibility guidelines, organization support and tools that support accessible development. This paper reports an investigation on JavaScript source-code complexity impacts of implementing accessibility requirements in widgets. We investigated Dialog, Drop-down menu and Tab widgets of 27 open-source JavaScript libraries. The results showed that widget software artifacts reported an increased average of source-code complexity when implementing accessibility requirements. Results also showed that using DOM-oriented JavaScript libraries (eg. jQuery) significantly increased source-code complexity of widgets. Nevertheless, when using Declarative Component-based JavaScript libraries, no significant difference in source-code complexity was observed. These results suggest that using Declarative Component-based widget libraries might reduce maintainability costs of JavaScript front-end projects.
Palavras-chave: JS Libraries, JS Frameworks, Accessibility, Widgets, ARIA
Publicado
05/11/2021
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WATANABE, Willian Massami; LEMOS, Guilherme de; ANTONELLI, Humberto Lídio; FORTES, Renata Pontin de Mattos; SILVA, Gabriel Costa. Code Complexity Impact of Widgets Accessibility Implementation in JavaScript Open-Source Libraries. In: BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON MULTIMEDIA AND THE WEB (WEBMEDIA), 1. , 2021, Minas Gerais. Anais [...]. Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação, 2021 . p. 9-16.