Computer Programming Education System for Visually Impaired Individuals

Block-based programming environments, widely used for teaching beginners, pose accessibility challenges for individuals with visual impairments due to limited support for screen readers and keyboard navigation. To address this issue, a previous study has proposed a novel user interface (UI) for navigating between code blocks using keyboards. However, this approach requires users to memorize block structures in advance, leading to cognitive strain. Additionally, visually impaired individuals often struggle to comprehend entire code sections at once due to the sequential nature of screen reader output, making debugging difficult. In response to these challenges, this paper proposes a novel UI for block-based programming that includes two key components to alleviate cognitive load and improve comprehension for users with visual impairments. Firstly, instead of navigating between code blocks, the proposed UI facilitates navigation between lines, reducing cognitive strain. Secondly, a debugging support method utilizing conversational AI is proposed to generate comprehensive code summaries in natural language, aiding in comprehension. The effectiveness of the proposed UI was evaluated through subjective assessment, demonstrating improvements in both task completion time and UI usability compared to existing methods.