Disability Impairment Approximation Simulation (NetBeans plug-ins) A suite of three different plug-ins for the NetBeans platform has been developed, in order to provide users of this IDE with the DIAS impairment simulation capabilities, embedded in their development environment. As explained in the following, two out of these three plugins enable the simulation of Java applications, whereas the third one allows the simulation of web pages of sites that are developed through the NetBeans IDE. Figure 1: Toolbar of NetBeans IDE with the DIAS run main (marked in red), web preview (blue) and preview design (green) plug-ins installed Java applications In respect of Java applications, the DIAS NetBeans plug-in suite includes the preview design and the run main simulation functionalities. The preview design plugin provides users a visual design preview feature that allows them to understand how their implemented Swing forms can be perceived from people with visual impairments. This plug-in enables developers to preview the form layout of their implementations, similarly to the simple “preview design” of the NetBeans platform, yet along with impairment simulation. The preview design functionality can be activated by clicking on the appropriate small image of an eye with an arm-chair preview icon, at the IDE’s Toolbar (Figure 1), while the developer is viewing a Swing form within the NetBeans conventional GUI form designer. Figure 2 shows an instance of the DIAS preview design plug-in, while glaucoma is simulated over a Swing form that is being developed with NetBeans. Figure 2: Simulation of glaucoma over a Swing form through the DIAS preview design plug-in Apart from the ability to see an approximation simulation of various disability impairments the developer is presented with a list of all the accessibility errors and
