Using quality requirements to systematically develop a national accessibility portal

Abstract

Web Engineering methodologies, tools and techniques are based on research from four decades of best practices in Software Engineering. Over the past ten years, users with disabilities have entered the market with several initiatives from governments to protect the rights of this market and to make information and services more accessible to them. The Meraka Institute initiated a technological project that will make information more readily available to people with disabilities. This initiative, called the National Accessibility Portal Initiative (NAP), is a multidisciplinary project that uses concepts from Software Engineering and Web Engineering with persons with disabilities as the intended users. Developing a quality web-based application for this market included the identification of the key quality non-functional attributes. In this paper the non-functional requirements for a web-based application for users with disabilities are identified, the development and implementation of the NAP portal is discussed and a description of how the essential non-functional requirements were adhered to in the implementation is provided.