As mobile applications (apps) become ubiquitous in everyday life, it is crucial for developers to prioritize accessibility for users with diverse abilities. While previous research has identified widespread accessibility issues and raised awareness of developer challenges, there remains a lack of cross-platform, globally representative insights into how practitioners approach accessibility in practice. This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods survey of 110 mobile app developers across 43 countries, examining how platform ecosystems (iOS vs. Android) and developer experience shape accessibility practices. Results show that while developers recognize the importance of accessibility, they often rely on platform-specific guidelines and typically perform compliance testing late in the development process. Developers primarily implement text-focused features while struggling with API limitations and organizational constraints. Through systematic cross-platform comparison, we identify novel platform-specific barriers and demonstrate how accessibility practices differ across developer experience levels. Our findings offer new insights into the challenges of achieving accessibility in practice and provide actionable steps for various stakeholders to promote more consistent and inclusive app development.

翻译：随着移动应用程序（app）在日常生活中变得无处不在，开发者优先考虑不同能力用户的无障碍访问变得至关重要。尽管先前研究已发现普遍存在的无障碍性问题并提高了对开发者挑战的认识，但对于从业者在实践中如何处理无障碍性，仍缺乏跨平台、具有全球代表性的深入见解。本文通过对来自43个国家的110名移动应用开发者进行的混合方法调查，展示了平台生态系统（iOS与Android）和开发者经验如何影响无障碍实践的研究结果。结果表明，尽管开发者认识到无障碍性的重要性，但他们通常依赖特定平台的指南，并且往往在开发过程的后期才进行合规性测试。开发者主要实施以文本为中心的功能，同时面临API限制和组织约束的挑战。通过系统的跨平台比较，我们识别出新的平台特定障碍，并展示了无障碍实践如何因开发者经验水平而异。我们的研究结果为实践中实现无障碍性所面临的挑战提供了新的见解，并为各利益相关方提供了可操作的步骤，以促进更一致和包容的应用开发。