Customizing WCAG 2.1 for In-Flight Entertainment Systems

Abstract: Entertainment on airplanes has increased in later years and is a significant part of the flight experience. In-flight Entertainment (IFE) can consist of many different types of entertainment such as movies, music, live-tv, and games. Recently, the attention to making accessible websites has also increased. WCAG is a set of guidelines for creating accessible web pages. The target devices for WCAG are computers, laptops, and mobile phones. This thesis aims to customize the guidelines and success criteria in WCAG to increase their utilization when applied in an IFE system. Additionally, this thesis focuses on finding differences in accessibility for IFE systems and websites.    The procedure to customize WCAG was done through literature and case studies. The data gathered from these two methods were used together to customize the guidelines and success criteria. The case study was done on people working with the development of IFE systems. Following the customization of WCAG, a comparison was made in a specific scenario between the customized guidelines and WCAG. The study showed that customization of some guidelines and success criteria in WCAG was necessary if WCAG was applied in an IFE system. However, the results also showed that most guidelines and success criteria can be used in an IFE system without changes. The customized guidelines are called IFCAG - In-Flight Content Accessibility Guidelines. To conclude, the guidelines and success criteria in IFCAG should work better than WCAG when applied in the development of an IFE system. However, this cannot be determined before IFCAG is applied during an actual development of an IFE system. Furthermore, WCAG consists of a large ecosystem of additional supporting documents. Future research could also look at these documents with IFE systems in mind.