EQUAL: Towards an inclusive design approach to novice programming languages and computing environments for native users

In the current textual programming languages (conventional, novice, etc.) and programming paradigms (e.g., procedural, declarative, functional etc.), the programming constructs, semantic concepts, and syntactic elements are based on English paradigm and implemented using ASCII character sets, seriously limiting the universal access to programming and computing skills. Especially, nonEnglish speaking native users (students, adults etc.) from nonEnglish speaking geographical regions, including visually challenged users, encounter serious cognitive, semantic and syntactic difficulties in understanding and translating their programming plans into the syntax and semantics of English based paradigm of a programming language. The authors have developed an inclusive, universal design framework with flexible cognitive, semantic and syntactic, and cultural adaptations in the textual languages and their compilers/interpreters to satisfy the computing requirements of native users.