Search

Evaluating Web sites for accessibility is a quality assurance process that becomes increasingly difficult to manage as the size and complexity of a Web site increases. There is a growing need to effectively manage and monitor the accessibility of Web sites throughout the development process. The Evaluation and Report Language (EARL) is a semantic Web vocabulary, and is a W3C royalty-free format for expressing test results. While EARL can be used to support generic Web quality assurance processes, it has been specifically developed to assist Web accessibility evaluation reviews. EARL facilitates the exchange of test results between development and quality assurance tools. While a lot of development has already gone into EARL and tools that support the EARL format, a lot more work and research remains to be addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The large amount of data produced by automatic web accessibility evaluation has to be preprocessed in order to enable disabled users or policy makers to draw meaningful conclusions from the assessment. We study different methods for interpretation and aggregation of the results provided by automatic assessment tools. Current approaches do not meet all the requirements suggested in the literature. Based on the UCAB approach decribed in UWEM 0.5 we develop a new aggregation function targeted at the requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several accessibility and usability guidelines are proposed more and more. In this paper we present an environment for defining, handling and checking guidelines for the Web. The goal of such a tool is to support developers and evaluators in flexibly handling multiple sets of guidelines, which can be dynamically considered in the evaluation process. In particular, an interactive editor has been designed to assist the evaluators in abstracting and specifying new and existing guidelines in our XML-based Guideline Abstraction Language (GAL), which are then stored in external files. Our tool is able to check any guidelines specified in this language without requiring changes in its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a detailed description of the work carried out under the umbrella of the EU-funded project BenToWeb to develop a complete XHTML 1.0 Test Suite in regard to conformance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 from the W3C. This initial work covered the Working Draft version of June 2005. A thorough evaluation involving end users is carried out at the moment of writing this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Automatic benchmarking of evaluation and repair tools (ERT) has been recently the subject of several studies as there is a growing interest because of legal and commercial issues on Web compliance with different criteria and standards. This paper addresses the development of a description language targeted to formally represent test case metadata. This language was used to develop a WCAG 2.0 test suite that will support the benchmarking of ERT with regard to the aforementioned W3C recommendation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Testing accessibility of a web site is still an art. Lack of appropriate definitions of accessibility and of standard testing methods are some of the reasons why Web accessibility is so difficult to achieve. The paper describes a heuristic walkthrough method based on barriers; it then discusses how methods like this can be evaluated, and it shows experimental data about validity and usefulness of the method when compared to standards review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality of websites is a key factor in addressing all users. Besides functional issues is the design of each web page affecting the ability to navigate and interact with web applications. Web designers are only slowly becoming aware of accessibility issues, more tools, better processes in creating high quality websites and a better understanding of guidelines is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People with dementia have not traditionally been seen as a user group for website development. This paper describes the first attempts to discover some of navigation design needs when developing an information-based website for people with dementia. A card sorting methodology is described using existing information that is provided for people with dementia about their condition. Some participants with dementia found it difficult to group concepts together. This could have a profound affect on the design of good websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to report a case study involving the successful redesigning of a Web page that was problematic for the hard-of-hearing. We found in our previous eye-tracking studies [1,2,3] that the page in question presented serious usability problems for the hard-of-hearing. Namely, the performance of hard-of-hearing participants was inferior to that of the hearing in terms of the following four performance measures: 1) scan patterns, 2) the number of errors and the time necessary to select the correct link, 3) the amount of time necessary to select a link, and 4) the types of selected links. We conjectured that these differences occurred because the informational organization of the original Web page was difficult for the hard-of-hearing to understand. Considering the Web interaction characteristics of the hard-of-hearing, we redesigned the page in two ways: 1) adding vertical lines that should function as visual support enabling the hard-of-hearing to grasp the informational structure easily, and 2) replacing difficult-to-understand labels with comprehensible representations. Observation of eye movements for the redesigned page revealed that the abovementioned differences disappeared, indicating that the redesign was successful. We believe that this case study exemplifies the successful redesigning of Web pages to make them more accessible to hard-of-hearing users. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many graphics used in Web pages are very attractive to the eye and useful for many people. However, with the extensive use of pixel graphics such as charts without textual description or image maps, Web pages are encountering an ever increasing amount of barriers. There are many developments to aid people with visual impairments to gain access to graphics on the Web but most of these techniques are not universally applicable to other disabilities. It is essential that future development concentrates on accommodating all kinds of disabilities. The use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) provides new possibilities as well as new challenges for the accessibility of Web sites. Consequently, this paper introduces a solution to make all graphics accessible to each user-group, and visualizes them in the resultant prototype Access2Graphics. Keywords:Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), accessibility, elderly/disabled people, barrier-free graphics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universal web accessibility is an inalienable objective to guarantee the civil right of all users to access to the Information Society and to avoid the digital gap. This is a long process based on the promulgation of inclusive laws, specification of accessibility guidelines, and development of adequate design methodologies and tools. To the short term, websites that do not fulfil the Universal Accessibility specifications can be used by specific groups of users that are not affected by the barriers present in these websites. Personal web accessibility concept focuses on the need of providing people with the adequate methods and tools to design websites so that adaptation and customization could be performed. This paper describes an architecture aiming to help any user to find, select and use websites that are currently accessible to her or him. In addition, it will aid web developers to create websites according to specific users' needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of generating web pages by means of dialogue. The generated web presentations fully meet accessibility requirements. The basic approach is described and discussed. An illustrative example is presented as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The serial nature of speech technology seriously reduces the efficiency of blind individuals accessing web-based documents. Locating and manoeuvring to the required information can often be slow and laborious. This paper describes WebTree, a rather simple, yet highly customisable tree structured interface to web based documents, which provides page summaries based on the tree-like arrangement of the mark-up. The user dynamically controls how much of the document's tree hierarchy is to be exposed on a (virtual) screen at any given time. Thus, entire element sub-trees may be efficiently traversed with minimal difficulty. Methods for incorporating non-hierarchical elements (such as tables), are also discussed. In addition, an alternative search mechanism, which allows for the restriction of the search to specific mark-up elements, is examined. Finally, this paper includes the initial findings from user evaluation tests and provides some additional recommendations to increase the usability of the interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, libraries serving persons who are blind or print disabled have had to create accessible, specially formatted materials and distribute these products to their patrons. As new technologies evolve, there is the vision of a time when materials published for the mainstream can be made accessible to persons with disabilities at the same time and at no greater cost than the versions targeted for the mainstream consumer. This paper and presentation will both provide you with an update on the "traditional" activities, and reveal the essential roles that many libraries for the blind are playing in the standards, open source software, and the consumer products arena that will lead to that vision of the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As rich media moves further into our daily lives, whether at home, work, or on the go, lack of accessibility in mainstream content and end-user devices remains a challenge. Digital Talking Books are an example of how accessible content that merges text, audio, and structure, can be delivered on specialized portable devices for use by those with print disabilities. Mainstream media formats and standards are evolving that allow structural and meta information to be included in multimedia, yet authors may not utilize such capabilities and playback systems may not expose them even if present. Music playlists, as found on ubiquitous media devices such as MP3 players, offer conceptual similarities to talking book navigation but lack accessibility. With the growing presence of multimedia enabled mobile phones and devices, and increased availability of mobile audio and video, the accessibility of the content and user interface becomes a critical issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the basic need for accessible information, the METAe Project and its results as related to the digitisation of printed materials, the advantages of harvesting structural metadata during the process, an overview of the digitisation technology and workflow in the docWORKS conversion solution from CCS, and a perspective and conclusion section relating to these subjects highlighting examples of where the technology is in use today and how the information can be used in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a model for Accessible Information Networks based on the experience of the "Serveur Hélène" project and on-going research within the European Specific Support Action EUAIN. It outlines the main components of the model, that should support contractual policies with publishers, as well as technical tools for improving the accessibility of the files provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Formal description of concepts so that it may be processed by computers has great promises for people with special needs. By making use of ontologies, improved user interaction with personal information management system is possible for these people. An ontology using semantic web technology is proposed which formally describes the mapping information about user's impairments, and the available interface characteristics. Effort is made to enhance accessibility at a generic level by making it possible to enrich the ontology for a diverse range of users. Consequently users with all types of special needs are able to get already customized interfaces. Especially, the possible adaptation to our prototype Personal Information Management System SemanticLIFE [1] is the trigger for this investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe an approach to generate semantic descriptions of entities in city maps so that they can be presented through accessible interfaces. The solution we present processes bitmap images containing city map excerpts. Regions of interest in these images are extracted automatically based on colour information and subsequently their geometric properties are determined. The result of this process is a structured description of these regions based on the Geography Markup Language (GML), an XML based format for the description of GIS data. This description can later serve as an input to innovative presentations of spatial structures using haptic and auditory interfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the problem of generating a picture of a scene by means of describing it in the terms of natural language ontologies. The corresponding graphical format, being formally represented in the form of the Pawlak information system, involves a full semantic description of the picture. Therefore, the pictures generated in this way "blind-friendly", i.e. they can be automatically fully described. A simple example of such a picture generation is presented here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an "oblique" listening system in the English language for the blind and visually impaired by controlling the speed of Text-to-Speech based on parts of speech in which the important parts are synthesized 'relatively' slower while the unimportant at the maximum speed. In the system evaluation experiment, English natives with vision impairments were required to listen to three short passages of Text-to-Speech at the three types of speed and answer the questions of comprehension after the base-line speed was calculated from the measured maximum speed of recognizing 'a word' and that of recognizing 'a sentence' for each subject. We controlled the Text-to-Speech speed: base-line, 'oblique listening' speed, and simple high speed, by which the duration is equal to the one by our system but without any speed variation. The results show that the "oblique" listening system is better than a simple high speed system even though not exceeding the base-line. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We proposed our integrated system for scientific documents including mathematical formulae with speech output interface [1], named "ChattyInfty." This system consists of recognizer, editor and speech interface for scientific documents. Using this system, visually impaired people can read printed scientific documents with speech output. In this paper, we propose a new additional function of this system, which recognizes PDF documents. Using this function, visually impaired people can also read PDF documents including mathematical formulae with ChattyInfty. If PDF documents have embedded text, our PDF recognition engine does not only recognize PDF documents as page images but also utilizes the text information to verify its recognition results, to improve the recognition results. Recent commercial OCR software usually provides PDF output. Combining it with our PDF reader, users can get integrated recognition results of any such commercial OCR with Infty's results of mathematical formulae. This system also provides simple interface customized for visually impaired people. It enables them to read scientific document (as image files / PDF) in minimum steps of key operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the combination of research topics from two projects focusing on web accessibility testing, and on metamodelling and high-level specification languages. This combination leads to a novel approach to accessibility assessment that will improve the understanding of accessibility issues, and explore the potential for generating executable accessibility tests based on accessibility constraint models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This presentation outlines the co-operation between Austrian school book publishers and service providers for people with special needs which aims at making books available in electronic format. A project has been working on a) a minimum set of structural elements to be incorporated by publishers, b) know-how and handouts for publishers how to implement structured design using standard desktop publishing (DTP) systems, c) examples of new books and redesign existing books, d) training materials, workshops and seminars to transfer the know-how to other publishers and design agencies, e) a general agreement which gives the right of transferring books in electronic format to students with disabilities, f) a Document Rights Management System, g) a workflow for the co-operation between schools/teachers, service providers, publishers and the ministry. A second part of the project focused on accessible design of online materials, additions to standard printed documents. We do not report on this part of the project here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to limitations of conventional text-based closed captions, expressions of paralinguistic and emotive information contained in the dialogue of television and film content are often missing. We present a framework for enhancing captions that uses animation and a set of standard properties to express five basic emotions. Using an action research method, the framework was developed from a designer's interpretation and rendering of animated text captions for two content examples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the Document Processing for Accessibility Workshop that is held at CEN/ISSS and summarizes its findings so far. It focuses on standards and initiatives that have been elaborated and concern document management and accessibility issues especially for the publishing industry. The paper provides also an outline of the work to be done and invites interested parties to take an active role in shaping the workshop. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presentation of graphical information is key problem during teaching of visually impaired children. The developed system is devoted for investigation of graphical information by blind user using a digitiser. SVG language with additional elements is used for describing of maps. Non-speech sounds are used to transfer information about colour. Alerting sound signals is issued near two regions boundary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present the software Hodder which is able to generate Braille Music Notes fully automatically. Thereby we focus on flexibility, readability, quality and translation speed. The software is designed to be used within a team of professional Braille note transcribers and to take over much of the tedious part of their work. Moreover the software is able to be used stand-alone. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Special Thematic Session (STS) on Accessible Content Processing is intended to provide a focus for several different activities which can be grouped under this area. The European Accessible Information Network (EUAIN) was established in order to bring together the different stakeholders in the accessible content processing chain and to build on common concerns. EUAIN has now completed a systemic overview of this area and will use this information to provide guidelines, training materials and input into standardisation activities. The papers in this STS address many of these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soul is an object-oriented framework for object support, on which specific object-support operating systems (called "subsystems") such as SOS, Comandos, or Cool, can be built and coexist. The Soul framework comprises a Nucleus (object-oriented microkernel), and a Generic Run-Time (GRT, an object-oriented toolkit of object-management object types and classes). A new subsystem is built by reusing, and extending, the existing GRT classes. Each subsystem constructs its own virtual machine. Separate applications in each subsystem communicate by sharing objects (including over time, with persistent objects). Since all subsystems share the same basic object mechanisms, we also have some hope for sharing across subsystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Standard Interfaces have limited accessibility. Multimodal user interfaces combine various input and output modalities (including seeing/vision, hearing/audition, haptic/tactile, taste/gustation, smell/olfaction etc.), which are a classical research area in Human-Computer Interaction. One of the advantages of multiple modalities is increased flexibility in Usability. The weaknesses of one modality are offset by the strengths of another. For example, on a mobile device with a small visual interface and keypad, a word may be quite difficult to read/type, however very easy to say/listen. Such interfaces, in combination with mobile technologies, can have tremendous implications for accessibility and consequently, they are a potential benefit for people with a wide variety of impairments. Multimodal interfaces must be designed and developed exactly to fit the needs, requirements, abilities and different knowledge levels of the targeted end-users. It is also important to consider different contexts of use. However, in order to achieve advances in both research and development of such interfaces, it is essential to bring researchers and practitioners from Psychology and Computer Science together. Keywords: Human-Computer Interaction & Usability Engineering (HCI&UE), Multimodal User Interfaces (MUI), Auditive User Interfaces (AUI). Introducing Statement: Today, together for better interfaces of tomorrow! [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Here we describe the summary of the STS on "People with Mobility Impairment: Human Comuter Interaction, Rehabilitation" that was proposed by Japanese research group of the Grant-in-Aid Scientific Research of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Twelve excellent papers are presented, whose authors are from Europe, North America, and Asia. Among them, 6 papers focus on cursor control by eye movement, and 6 papers describe other new challenges of assistive technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making tourism accessible means to make tourism enjoyable for everyone, whether the tourist is a young or an old tourist, a wheelchair user, a visually or hearing impaired person, a mother with a baby carriage, a single parent family, a traveler with heavy bulky baggage or someone recovering from an accident or an illness. The accessibility itself refers to the physical accessibility of the infrastructure, facilities and services at the holiday location as well as to the accessibility and availability of information regarding on-site accessibility. Addressing accessible tourism, the tourism industry can gain an economic advantage and an added value for tourism destinations, which attract the expanded market of all tourists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The commercial market for computer games and other multimedia products is extremely large and young people have a considerable experience of such games. Disabled users have very limited access to this important part of the youth culture. Indeed there are few entertaining computer games which are accessible for them. Research and development in the field of IT and the disabled has focused on education rather than leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This session has been design as to discuss several and various aspects involved in the design of quality and to examine how e-accessibility may impact this general process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over ten years human-computer interface, blind interaction and integration of visually impaired users with sighted users are the key issues of equal access to information and service. The vast research on alternative visualization, augmented communication, user-centered design and usability has been done, and much more projects and solutions are under development. However, several generations of graphical interfaces (Xerox, Apple, Microsoft) have brought less or no benefits for the blind users. Some elderly people still recall the times of DOS and command line, when both the system and application software levels were almost equally accessible. Nowadays, multi-processor operating systems are extremely complex and perform hundreds of routine tasks which are not necessary to be supervised or adapted for the user control at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a result of increasing life expectancy and the resulting demographic shift, there are ever growing numbers of elderly persons, living in single households. In consequence of declining cognitive and physical abilities, many affected persons are increasingly dependent on external support to carry out basic and instrumental activities of everyday living. In order to extend the time span elderly people can live independently in their preferred environment, new solutions offered by modern information and communications technology (ICT) need to be introduced. In important respects, ICT support is the primary unsatisfied need of individual elderly persons, their families and caregivers. This need can be met by ICT-based support in health and activity monitoring, by enhancing safety and security in home environments, by improving access to social welfare and medical services, by facilitating social contacts as well as access to context-based infotainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]