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• Using simultaneous audio sources to speed-up blind people's web scanning

  João Guerreiro · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This doctoral consortium paper proposes using multiple simultaneous audio sources to help blind users scan web content faster. The core problem is that screen readers present information sequentially — one item at a time — while sighted users can visually scan an entire page at…

  blindness · screen readers · spatial audio · web navigation · auditory perception

• Adapting data table to improve web accessibility

  Pauli P. Y. Lai · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper addresses the challenge of making web data tables accessible to screen reader users, particularly when tables are not properly marked up with semantic HTML tags like <th>, <thead>, and <tfoot>. Screen readers present content linearly, so large tables become…

  blindness · screen readers · data tables · content adaptation · web accessibility

• Providing Access to the High-Level Content of Line Graphs from Online Popular Media

  Priscilla S. Moraes, Sandra Carberry, Kathleen McCoy · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper extends the Interactive SIGHT (Summarizing Information Graphics Textually) system to generate natural language summaries of line graphs found in online popular media articles, making their high-level content accessible to visually impaired users via screen readers.…

  data visualization · visual impairment · natural language generation · assistive technology · screen readers

• Evaluating Accessibility-in-Use

  Markel Vigo, Simon Harper · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces a novel method for evaluating web accessibility that goes beyond traditional guideline conformance testing. The authors argue that standards like WCAG 2.0 capture only about 53% of accessibility problems experienced by users, missing issues such as broken…

  accessibility evaluation · user interaction · behavioural analysis · screen readers · blind and low vision

• Uncovering the Role of Expectations on Perceived Web Accessibility

  Amaia Aizpurua, Myriam Arrue, Markel Vigo · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper investigates how user expectations shape the perception of web accessibility for blind users, arguing that guideline compliance alone does not guarantee a satisfying user experience. The authors note a key gap: prior research found that only 50.4% of problems…

  web accessibility · blind users · screen readers · user experience · perceived accessibility

• Auditory Displays for Accessible Fantasy Sports

  Jared M. Batterman, Jonathan H. Schuett, Bruce N. Walker · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper addresses the inaccessibility of online fantasy sports platforms for visually impaired users and presents an accessible fantasy football system built around auditory display techniques. Fantasy sports are a major social and recreational activity with over 32…

  auditory display · sonification · blind users · visual impairment · sports accessibility

• How Accessible is the Process of Web Interface Design?

  Kirk Norman, Yevgeniy Arber, Ravi Kuber · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper investigates the accessibility challenges faced by blind web interface developers through interviews with six legally blind participants (all male, aged 29-48) who had experience building websites and online applications. Five used JAWS as their primary screen…

  blind developers · web development · screen readers · programming accessibility · JAWS

• Accessible Photo Album: Enhancing the Photo Sharing Experience for People with Visual Impairment

  Susumu Harada, Daisuke Sato, Dustin W. Adams, Sri Kurniawan, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2013 · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13)

  This paper investigates how blind and partially sighted people can be supported not only in capturing photographs but in organising, recalling, and sharing them afterwards — a step that the authors argue has been largely neglected in prior blind-photography research. The study…

  blindness and low vision · mobile accessibility · assistive technology · photography · audiophotography

• An Intuitive Accessible Web Automation User Interface

  Yury Puzis, Yevgen Borodin, Faisal Ahmed, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2012 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper proposes and evaluates an intuitive web automation interface designed specifically for blind screen reader users. The authors observe that while the visual web has become increasingly sophisticated, assistive technology has not kept pace — blind users face high…

  web automation · screen readers · blind users · form filling · user study

• Why Read if You Can Skim: Towards Enabling Faster Screen Reading

  Faisal Ahmed, Yevgen Borodin, Yury Puzis, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2012 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper investigates how to bring the speed-reading technique of skimming — widely used by sighted readers to quickly get the gist of content — to blind screen reader users who face chronic information overload when listening to web content sequentially. The authors observe…

  screen readers · skimming · speed reading · blind users · text summarization

• Universal and Ubiquitous Web Access with Capti

  Yevgen Borodin, Andrii Sovyak, Alexander Dimitriyadi, Yury Puzis, Valentyn Melnyk, Faisal Ahmed, Glenn Dausch, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2012 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents Capti, a cross-platform web browsing application designed to make web access more usable for both blind and sighted users. Capti addresses two interconnected problems: the inefficiency of traditional screen readers for finding and consuming web content,…

  screen readers · assistive technology · blind and low vision · text-to-speech · universal design

• Back Navigation Shortcuts for Screen Reader Users

  Romisa Rohani Ghahari, Mexhid Ferati, Tao Yang, Davide Bolchini · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper introduces two novel back navigation strategies — topic-based back and list-based back — designed to make backtracking through previously visited web pages dramatically more efficient for screen reader users. The fundamental problem is that when blind users need to…

  screen readers · navigation · information architecture · blind users · web accessibility

• Accessible Skimming: Faster Screen Reading of Web Pages

  Faisal Ahmed · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents an automated approach to enable non-visual skimming of web pages for screen reader users. Sighted people routinely skim web content through quick eye movements (saccades) that let them glance over headlines and text to extract the gist of…

  screen readers · blind users · web accessibility · text summarization · natural language processing

• Accessible Web Automation Interface: A User Study

  Yury Puzis · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents the evaluation of two web automation user interfaces designed to help blind and low-vision screen reader users complete web browsing tasks more efficiently. The fundamental problem is that while the web has become essential for daily tasks…

  web accessibility · web automation · screen readers · blind users · low vision

• Thematic Organization of Web Content for Distraction-Free Text-to-Speech Narration

  Muhammad Asiful Islam, Faisal Ahmed, Yevgen Borodin, I.V. Ramakrishnan · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem in how blind users experience web content through screen readers: the serial, linear narration of complex web pages that contain multiple thematic elements — news stories, ads, navigation taxonomies, and opinion pieces — all…

  screen readers · web segmentation · text-to-speech · blind users · cognitive load

• Improving accessibility to mathematical formulas: the Wikipedia math accessor

  Leo Ferres, Jose Fuentes Sepúlveda · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents MathAcc, an assistive technology system that generates natural language descriptions in Spanish for the more than 355,000 mathematical formulas found across 26,174 Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia renders formulas as rasterised PNG images of LaTeX expressions,…

  mathematical accessibility · blindness · natural language generation · MathML · Wikipedia

• Augment browsing and standard profiling for enhancing web accessibility

  Silvia Mirri, Paola Salomoni, Catia Prandi · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents GAPforAPE (GreaseMonkey And Profiling for Accessible Pages Enhancement), a client-side system that automatically transcodes web content to meet individual users' accessibility needs and preferences. The system is built as a Firefox browser extension using the…

  content transcoding · user profiling · browser extensions · social media accessibility · personalization

• Accessibility Approach to Adopting Web Technologies

  Neil King, Damien McCormack · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents findings from a comprehensive Australian Government-commissioned study by Vision Australia into the accessibility of the PDF format for people with disabilities. The three-phase research combined user consultation (focus groups with blind and low vision…

  PDF accessibility · assistive technology · blind and low vision · screen readers · document accessibility

• The AccDC Enterprise API for Advanced UI Automation

  Bryan Garaventa · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents the AccDC Enterprise API, a JavaScript-based dynamic content management system designed to build Rich Internet Applications with automatic accessibility built in from the ground up. Created by Bryan Garaventa through WhatSock.com, the API promotes the…

  WAI-ARIA · JavaScript · rich internet applications · web accessibility · accessibility tools

• Application of Content Adaptation in Web Accessibility for the Blind

  Pauli P. Y. Lai · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper proposes transforming web pages into hierarchical, numbered menu structures — modeled on Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) — so blind users can navigate content by pressing number keys rather than listening sequentially through entire pages. The author…

  blind and low vision · content adaptation · screen readers · mobile accessibility · web page segmentation

• AJAX Time Machine

  Andy Brown, Simon Harper · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper proposes the AJAX Time Machine, a Google Chrome browser extension that records states of dynamically updating web page regions and allows users to step backwards and forwards through those states at their own pace. The authors argue that dynamic AJAX content —…

  AJAX · dynamic content · cognitive accessibility · aging · screen readers

• WAI-ARIA Live Regions and HTML5

  Peter Thiessen · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper examines the interoperability of WAI-ARIA live regions with HTML5 semantic elements, testing whether screen readers can correctly handle dynamic DOM updates when live region attributes are applied to new HTML5 elements like section, nav, and article. The author…

  WAI-ARIA · HTML5 · screen readers · dynamic content · AJAX

• Identifying Behavioral Strategies of Visually Impaired Users to Improve Access to Web Content

  Darren Lunn, Simon Harper, Sean Bechhofer · 2011 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents a methodology for identifying how visually impaired screen reader users develop coping strategies when encountering inaccessible web content, then uses those strategies to inform the design of transcoding solutions. The researchers conducted observational…

  screen readers · web accessibility · transcoding · coping strategies · user behavior

• Spindex (Speech Index) Improves Auditory Menu Acceptance and Navigation Performance

  Myounghoon Jeon, Bruce N. Walker · 2011 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper introduces the "spindex" (speech index), a novel auditory cue designed to improve navigation through spoken menus on mobile devices. The spindex works by pronouncing the first letter of each menu item before the full text-to-speech (TTS) rendering—analogous to the…

  auditory interfaces · mobile accessibility · text-to-speech · screen readers · user interface design

• On the Intelligibility of Fast Synthesized Speech for Individuals with Early-Onset Blindness

  Amanda Stent, Ann Syrdal, Taniya Mishra · 2011 · Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This paper reports on a pilot experiment comparing the intelligibility of fast synthesized speech across different text-to-speech (TTS) systems for individuals with early-onset blindness (onset before age seven). People who are blind increasingly use TTS as their primary…

  text-to-speech · screen readers · blindness · speech technology · speech intelligibility