What's the Weather: Making Weather Data Accessible for Visually Impaired Students

Abstract

We determined during a collaboration project in Kenya that students with visual impairments were interested in learning about weather data as part of their Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) education. Unfortunately much of this data is not accessible to the students due to lack of integration with assistive technologies, as well as limited access to landline internet. Therefore we created the Accessible Weather App to run on Android and integrate with the TalkBack accessibility feature that is already available on the operating system. This paper discusses the process for determining what features the users’ would require, and our methodology for evaluating the beta version of the app. User feedback was positive and suggestions have helped advance the interface design. The overall goal of our project is to develop, evaluate, and integrate the Accessible Weather App into weather and meteorology learning activities for students with visual impairments.