Bonk

Abstract

Introductory computer programming presents a number of challenges for blind and visually impaired screen reader users. In addition to the challenges of navigating complex code documents using a screen reader, novice programmers who are blind are often unable to experience fun coding projects such as programming games or animations. To address these accessibility barriers, we developed Bonk, an accessible programming environment that enables the creation of interactive audio games using a subset of the JavaScript programming language. Bonk enables novice programmers to create, share, play, and remix accessible audio games. In this paper, we introduce the Bonk programming toolkit and describe its use in a week-long programming workshop with blind and visually impaired high school students. Students in the workshop were able to create and share original audio games using Bonk, and expressed enthusiasm about furthering their programming knowledge.