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• Evaluating Existing Audio CAPTCHAs and an Interface Optimized for Non-Visual Use

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender · 2009 · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009)

  This paper presents the first large-scale evaluation of audio CAPTCHAs — the purportedly accessible alternative to visual CAPTCHAs — revealing that they are dramatically more difficult for both blind and sighted users. The study gathered 10 types of audio CAPTCHAs from major…

  blind and low vision · web accessibility · screen readers · CAPTCHA · authentication

• Mining Web Interactions to Automatically Create Mash-Ups

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Ryan S. Kaminsky, Jeffrey Nichols · 2009 · Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2009)

  This paper introduces TX2, a Firefox browser extension that automatically creates meta-search mash-ups by mining the web interactions of multiple users to discover relationships between query forms on different websites. The deep web — information accessible only through web…

  web accessibility · web development · information retrieval · end-user programming · personalization

• Trailblazer: Enabling Blind Users to Blaze Trails Through the Web

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Tessa Lau, Jeffrey Nichols · 2009 · IUI '09: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces

  This paper introduces TrailBlazer, a system designed to help blind web users complete tasks more efficiently by providing step-by-step guidance through web pages. The core problem it addresses is that blind users relying on screen readers must often perform time-consuming linear…

  screen readers · blind users · web accessibility · non-visual interfaces · programming by demonstration

• Validity and Reliability of Web Accessibility Guidelines

  Giorgio Brajnik · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper presents an experiment measuring the validity and reliability of WCAG 1.0 and WCAG 2.0 checkpoints when applied by human evaluators. The study recruited 35 young web developers with some accessibility knowledge from a university course and asked them to evaluate two…

  accessibility evaluation · WCAG · conformance testing · inter-rater reliability · web accessibility

• Collaborative Web Accessibility Improvement: Challenges and Possibilities

  Hironobu Takagi, Shinya Kawanaka, Masatomo Kobayashi, Daisuke Sato, Chieko Asakawa · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper reports on the Social Accessibility Project, an experimental service developed by IBM Research in Tokyo that uses collaborative metadata authoring to improve web accessibility. The system works through a three-part architecture: end users (primarily screen reader…

  web accessibility · collaborative accessibility · crowdsourcing · metadata · screen readers

• How Much Does Expertise Matter? A Barrier Walkthrough Study with Experts and Non-Experts

  Yeliz Yesilada, Giorgio Brajnik, Simon Harper · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper investigates whether expertise matters in manual web accessibility evaluation by comparing results from 19 expert and 51 non-expert judges using the Barrier Walkthrough (BW) method. The BW method is an analytical technique based on heuristic walkthrough where…

  web accessibility · accessibility evaluation · barrier walkthrough · WCAG · evaluator effect

• Enriching Web Information Scent for Blind Users

  Markel Vigo, Barbara Leporini, Fabio Paternò · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper investigates whether annotating web links with accessibility scores of their target pages can improve navigation efficiency for blind screen reader users. The core idea draws on information foraging theory: just as sighted users follow visual cues ("information…

  web accessibility · blind users · screen readers · information scent · information foraging

• Including Accessibility Within and Beyond Undergraduate Computing Courses

  Annalu Waller, Vicki L. Hanson, David Sloan · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper describes the University of Dundee's approach to integrating accessibility and inclusive design throughout its entire four-year undergraduate computing curriculum, rather than treating accessibility as a standalone topic or elective module. The School of Computing at…

  accessibility education · inclusive design · higher education · curriculum design · web accessibility

• Accessibility Commons: A Metadata Repository for Web Accessibility

  Shinya Kawanaka, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2009 · ACM SIGWEB Newsletter, Summer 2009

  This short SIGWEB Newsletter article proposes Accessibility Commons (AC), a shared federated repository for externally authored web-accessibility metadata. The authors argue that accessibility cannot scale as long as fixes depend on the original site owner inlining alt text,…

  web accessibility · metadata · semantic transcoding · social accessibility · crowdsourcing

• A Survey on the Accessibility Awareness of People Involved in Web Development Projects in Brazil

  Andre P. Freire, Cibele M. Russo, Renata P. M. Fortes · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents one of the largest surveys of its time examining how people involved in web development projects in Brazil perceive and address accessibility. The researchers conducted an exploratory study using a web-based questionnaire distributed across all 27 Brazilian…

  web accessibility · survey research · developer awareness · accessibility education · accessibility legislation

• A Web Design Framework for Improved Accessibility for People with Disabilities (WDFAD)

  Rehema Baguma, Jude T. Lubega · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Makerere University in Uganda proposes WDFAD (Web Design Framework for Improved Accessibility for People with Disabilities), a developer-oriented framework that repackages web accessibility requirements according to the three components of web applications:…

  web accessibility · accessibility framework · blind users · screen readers · web design

• The Impact of Accessibility Assessment in Macro Scale Universal Usability Studies of the Web

  Rui Lopes, Luís Carriço · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2008)

  This paper introduces Web Interaction Environments (WIEs), a modelling framework for studying universal usability of the web at large scale. The authors argue that existing approaches to accessibility evaluation treat audiences as homogeneous groups, failing to capture the…

  universal usability · audience modelling · web accessibility · WCAG evaluation · Wikipedia

• The Accessibility Kit for SharePoint: A Community-Based Approach to Web Accessibility

  Robert B. Yonaitis, Dana Louise Simberkoff, Kurt A. Mueffelmann, Cynthia Shelly · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper describes the Accessibility Kit for SharePoint (AKS), an open-source add-on developed by HiSoftware in collaboration with Microsoft to bring WCAG 1.0 AA conformance to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS). SharePoint was at the time Microsoft's…

  web accessibility · content management systems · organizational accessibility · WCAG compliance · open source

• Grouping Hyperlinks for Improved Voice/Mobile Accessibility

  Alex Penev, Raymond K. Wong · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from UNSW Sydney proposes an automatic technique for clustering a web page's hyperlinks into topical groups to help blind screen reader users and mobile device users locate desired links more quickly. The core problem is that sighted users can visually scan a page in…

  web accessibility · screen readers · blind users · navigation · mobile accessibility

• Thailand's National Digital Divide Strategic Framework

  Proadpran Punyabukkana, Suchai Thanawastien, Ajin Jirachiefpattana · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Thailand's Digital Divide Strategic Framework (2008-2010), a national plan developed by the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology to address ICT accessibility for three target populations: the poor, people with disabilities, and senior…

  accessibility policy · digital divide · assistive technology · web accessibility · universal design

• Accessible Blog Posts with Windows Live Writer

  Cynthia Shelly, Becky Pezely · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper from Microsoft describes how Windows Live Writer, a desktop blogging application installed on over 20 million machines with approximately 100,000 daily active users, was designed to produce accessible HTML output without requiring authors to understand HTML or…

  web accessibility · authoring tools · blogging · semantic HTML · alternative text

• The SADIe Transcoding Platform

  Darren Lunn, Sean Bechhofer, Simon Harper · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper presents the SADIe (Structural-Semantics for Accessibility and Device Independence) transcoding platform, developed at the University of Manchester. SADIe addresses a fundamental challenge for visually impaired screen reader users: web pages are designed…

  web accessibility · transcoding · screen readers · visual impairment · semantic web

• Towards Bridging the Accessibility Needs of People with Disabilities and the Ageing Community

  Shadi Abou-Zahra, Judy Brewer, Andrew Arch · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This keynote paper introduces the WAI-AGE (Web Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and Harmonisation) project, a 36-month W3C/WAI initiative funded by the European Commission under its 6th Framework Programme. The project aimed to bridge the gap between the disability and…

  web accessibility · aging · accessibility policy · WCAG · standards harmonization

• AxsJAX: A Talking Translation Bot Using Google IM: Bringing Web-2.0 Applications to Life

  Charles L. Chen, T. V. Raman · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Google describes how the AxsJAX framework uses WAI-ARIA live regions to make Google Talk — an instant messaging client integrated into GMail — fully accessible to screen reader and self-voicing browser users, and demonstrates a compelling mashup application: a…

  ARIA · web accessibility · screen readers · live regions · Web 2.0

• Keeping Up with Technology: Commentary on "Computers and People with Disabilities"

  Alistair D. N. Edwards · 2008 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This reflective commentary by Alistair Edwards examines what has—and crucially, what has not—changed in accessible computing since Glinert and York's influential 1992 paper. Edwards frames his analysis through a fashion-versus-style metaphor: while technology "fashions"…

  accessibility history · screen readers · GUI accessibility · assistive technology · web accessibility

• Access and Empowerment: Commentary on "Computers and People with Disabilities"

  Richard E. Ladner · 2008 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  Richard Ladner offers an optimistic assessment of progress since Glinert and York's 1992 call-to-arms, emphasizing how market forces—not just legal mandates—have driven accessibility improvements. With 16% of the U.S. population disabled and 10% of the working population…

  universal design · ubiquitous computing · web accessibility · user empowerment · accessibility history

• What's New? Making Web Page Updates Accessible

  Yevgen Borodin, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Rohit Raman, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2008 · Assets '08: Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper introduces Dynamo, a system that makes dynamic web page content accessible to blind screen reader users by automatically detecting changes across all types of web page updates and providing a unified interface for reviewing them. The paper addresses a critical problem…

  screen readers · web accessibility · dynamic content · AJAX · ARIA

• Hunting for Headings: Sighted Labeling vs. Automatic Classification of Headings

  Jeremy T. Brudvik, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender, Richard E. Ladner · 2008 · Assets '08: Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the problem of missing heading markup in web pages — a significant accessibility barrier for blind screen reader users who rely on heading navigation (h1-h6 tags) to quickly skip through page content rather than reading linearly. While headings are one of…

  web accessibility · headings · screen readers · machine learning · semantic HTML

• Accessibility Commons: A Metadata Infrastructure for Web Accessibility

  Shinya Kawanaka, Yevgen Borodin, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Darren Lunn, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2008 · Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper introduces Accessibility Commons (AC), a shared metadata infrastructure designed to integrate, store, and share accessibility metadata produced by diverse research projects, assistive technologies, and individual users. The authors identify a core problem: numerous…

  web accessibility · metadata · assistive technology · screen readers · social accessibility

• MySpeechWeb: software to facilitate the construction and deployment of speech applications on the web

  Richard A. Frost, Ali Karaki, David A. Dufour, Josh Greig, Rahmatullah Hafiz, Yue Shi, Shawn Daichendt, Shahriar Chandon, Justin Barolak, Randy J. Fortier · 2008 · Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This short paper presents MySpeechWeb, an open-source platform for creating and deploying voice-in/voice-out speech applications on the web. The authors identify a significant gap: despite the potential of speech interfaces to improve web access for people with visual,…

  speech interfaces · voice interaction · web accessibility · open source · assistive technology