Accessibility in the SciELO Program: current status and future prospects – Part 2 | SciELO in Perspective

"Throughout its 26 years of existence, the recurring maintenance of the interface of all SciELO sites (SciELO Network portal, national collections, search engine etc.) was not executed in a joint and standardized manner. Carried out in a fragmented fashion, the results tended not to satisfactorily address the consistent nature of the interfaces. Consequently, usability and navigability behaviors remained different when distinct devices and operating systems were considered (desktop, tablet, Android, iOS).

In view of this, SciELO Accessibility carried out a pilot study to identify and classify barriers to accessibility on the SciELO Brazil Collection website. The initiative consisted of subjecting the SciELO methodology website to a heuristic evaluation, the method of which involves inspecting and testing the usability and navigability of the interface in order to identify any accessibility issues.

These procedures were carried out by four Special Education professionals, two visually impaired professionals who use screen reader software, and a Human Computer Interaction (HCI) PhD in Computer Science. Using manual (with and without using screen readers) and electronic WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool2 verification procedures.

The results of the evaluation made it possible to identify and correct elements that had a critical impact on the website accessibility, among which the following stand out: interface not suitable for mobile devices, lack of contrasts and colors perceptible to people with color blindness, inadequate font size and buttons, and reading by screen readers hindered by the lack of information hierarchy.

The improvements made to the platform are presented in this second part of the post Accessibility in the SciELO Program: current status and future prospects – Part 1.3

The article page was made responsive, ensuring good navigation on a variety of screen sizes. In this process, each of the interface components is developed individually and the changes are made globally. This methodology is known as a design system. The adaptation of the interface components was supported by the visual prototyping tool Figma...."