  The number of applications on online mobile application stores is increasing
at a rapid rate. Smart-phones are used by a wide range of people varying in
age, and also in the ability to use a smart phone. With the increasing
dependency on smart-phones, the paper aims to determine whether the popular
applications on Google Play, the official store for Android applications, can
be used by people with vision impairment. The accessibility of the applications
was tested using an external keyboard, and TalkBack, an accessibility tool
developed by Google. It was found that several popular applications on the
store were not designed keeping accessibility in mind. It was observed that
there exists a weak positive relationship between the popularity of the
application and its accessibility. A framework is proposed that can be used by
developers to improve the accessibility of an application. The paper also
discusses the programming aspects to be considered while developing an Android
application, so that the application can be used by sighted as well as visually
impaired users.
