Reviews

Search results

• Accessmonkey: A Collaborative Scripting Framework for Web Users and Developers

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Richard E. Ladner · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces Accessmonkey, a JavaScript-based scripting framework that enables web users, developers, and researchers to collaboratively improve web accessibility through client-side page modifications. Built as an extension of the Greasemonkey Firefox extension…

  web accessibility · web transcoding · browser extensions · JavaScript · collaborative accessibility

• Experimental Evaluation of Usability and Accessibility of Heading Elements

  Takayuki Watanabe · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This study by Takayuki Watanabe of Tokyo Woman's Christian University provides empirical evidence for something the accessibility community has long advocated: that proper semantic markup of heading elements (h1-h6) significantly improves both usability and accessibility. The…

  semantic HTML · heading elements · screen readers · usability testing · blindness

• Ajax Live Regions: Chat as a Case Example

  Peter Thiessen, Charles Chen · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents one of the earliest practical implementations of WAI-ARIA live regions, using an accessible Ajax chat application called Reef Chat as a proof of concept. The authors — Peter Thiessen from the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Centre and…

  WAI-ARIA · ARIA live regions · AJAX · Web 2.0 · screen readers

• Enabling an Accessible Web 2.0

  Becky Gibson · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2007)

  This keynote paper from IBM's Becky Gibson examines the accessibility challenges created by the emergence of Web 2.0 and the technologies being developed to address them. Written at a pivotal moment in web history, the paper describes how the shift from static HTML pages to…

  ARIA · Web 2.0 · JavaScript · DHTML · accessibility APIs

• Accessibility in Non-Professional Web Authoring Tools: A Missed Web 2.0 Opportunity?

  Christopher Power, Helen Petrie · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from the University of York evaluates the accessibility of Apple's iWeb, a non-professional web authoring tool representative of a new generation of Web 2.0 design applications aimed at non-technical users creating personal websites, blogs, and photo albums. The…

  web accessibility · authoring tools · WCAG compliance · Web 2.0 · semantic HTML

• Mathematics on the Web: Emerging Opportunities for Visually Impaired People

  Cristian Bernareggi, Dominique Archambault · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from the @Science European thematic network surveys the state of the art in making mathematical content on the web accessible to visually impaired people, arguing that MathML adoption is the key to unlocking accessibility. The authors explain a fundamental challenge:…

  mathematical accessibility · visual impairment · blind users · MathML · braille

• Using a CMS to Create Fully Accessible Websites

  Sébastien Rainville-Pitt, Jean-Marie D'Amour · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents Edimaster Plus, a content management system developed over five years by Netic Hypermedia Inc. in Quebec, Canada, designed from the ground up to generate fully accessible websites meeting all three WAI priority levels. The paper addresses a…

  web accessibility · content management systems · authoring tools · WCAG compliance · assistive technology

• Accessibility for Simple to Moderate-Complexity DHTML Web Sites

  Cynthia C. Shelly, George Young · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This detailed technical paper from Microsoft provides practical design and coding techniques for making Dynamic HTML and AJAX applications accessible using the browser and assistive technology capabilities available in 2007 — deliberately without relying on the then-in-progress…

  web accessibility · DHTML · AJAX · JavaScript · keyboard accessibility

• Accessible Image File Formats: The Need and the Way (Position Paper)

  Sandeep R. Patil · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This position paper from IBM India argues that existing WCAG guidelines for image accessibility (alt text, longdesc, image maps) are insufficient because they rely on voluntary compliance by content authors and cannot address scenarios where images are the primary content — such…

  image accessibility · alternative text · screen readers · blind users · visual impairment

• Ajax Live Regions: ReefChat Using the Fire Vox Screen Reader as a Case Example

  Peter Thiessen, Charles Chen · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents ReefChat, an accessible Ajax chat application, and Fire Vox, an open-source screen reader extension for Firefox, as a proof-of-concept for WAI-ARIA live regions — one of the earliest practical demonstrations of this then-nascent specification. The authors…

  ARIA · live regions · web accessibility · AJAX · Web 2.0

• Making Multimedia Content Accessible for Screen Reader Users

  Hisashi Miyashita, Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo describes an accessible multimedia browser designed to address three critical barriers blind users face with web multimedia content. The first problem is audio conflict: when media plays on a page, its sound masks the screen reader's speech…

  multimedia accessibility · screen readers · blind users · audio description · video accessibility

• The Status of Using "Big Eye" Chinese Screen Reader on "Wretch" Blog in Taiwan

  Yui-Liang Chen, Yung-Yu Ho · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper examines the accessibility of Wretch Blog (wretch.cc), one of the most popular blogging platforms in Taiwan, when used with "Big Eye," a Chinese-language screen reader. The authors find that most core functionality of the blog works for visually impaired users —…

  web accessibility · screen readers · blind users · blogging · multilingual accessibility

• The HearSay Non-Visual Web Browser

  Yevgen Borodin, Jalal Mahmud, I. V. Ramakrishnan, Amanda Stent · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the original HearSay non-visual web browser (version 1/2), developed at Stony Brook University in collaboration with the Helen Keller Services for the Blind. HearSay is a free, open-source, cross-platform browser written in Java that uses Mozilla for web…

  non-visual web browser · screen readers · blind users · web accessibility · natural language processing

• Increasing Web Accessibility by Automatically Judging Alternative Text Quality

  Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2007 · Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007)

  This paper presents a machine learning classifier that can automatically judge whether alternative text assigned to web images is appropriate or inappropriate, using contextual features rather than visual analysis of the image itself. The research addresses a persistent web…

  alternative text · web accessibility · machine learning · screen readers · automated testing

• WebAnywhere: A Screen Reader On-the-Go

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Craig M. Prince · 2007 · Assets '07: Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This demonstration paper introduces WebAnywhere, a web-based, self-voicing screen reader that enables blind users to access the web from any computer with a standard browser and sound output, without needing to install specialized software. The paper addresses a fundamental…

  screen readers · web accessibility · blind users · assistive technology · text-to-speech

• WebinSitu: A Comparative Analysis of Blind and Sighted Browsing Behavior

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender, Jeremy T. Brudvik, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Richard E. Ladner · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper presents WebinSitu, a remote in situ study comparing the web browsing behavior of 10 blind and 10 sighted users over a one-week period. The study used an advanced web proxy built on UsaProxy that injected JavaScript into viewed pages to record not just HTTP requests…

  web accessibility · blind users · screen readers · browsing behavior · user research

• MathPlayer V2.1: Web-based Math Accessibility

  Neil Soiffer · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper describes MathPlayer v2.1, a plug-in developed by Design Science, Inc. that renders MathML visually in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat/Reader while providing extensive accessibility features for people with print disabilities. Unlike previous math…

  mathematical accessibility · MathML · screen readers · braille · print disabilities

• Observing Sara: A Case Study of a Blind Person's Interactions with Technology

  Kristen Shinohara, Josh Tenenberg · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the University of Washington, Tacoma presents a rich, in-depth case study of Sara, a congenitally blind college student, observed and interviewed across multiple sessions as she interacts with a wide range of technologies in her home. The study uses Blythe, Monk…

  blindness · assistive technology · case study · technology biographies · workarounds

• Improving Accessibility of HTML Documents by Generating Image-Tags in a Proxy

  Daniel Keysers, Marius Renn, Thomas M. Breuel · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI) and Technical University Kaiserslautern presents a system that automatically generates ALT tags for images on web pages by analysing image contents through a web proxy. The system addresses the…

  automatic alt text · image accessibility · web accessibility · computer vision · image retrieval

• Improving Accessibility to Statistical Graphs: The iGraph-Lite System

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Gitte Lindgaard, Louis Boucher, Antoine Chretien, Martin Lachance · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada presents iGraph-Lite, a system that makes statistical graphs accessible to blind and visually impaired people by generating natural language descriptions and providing an interactive navigation tool for exploring graph…

  data visualization accessibility · graph accessibility · natural language generation · screen readers · blindness

• Automatic accessibility transcoding for flash content

  Daisuke Sato, Hisashi Miyashita, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This 2007 paper from IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory tackles a problem that was acute during the height of the Flash era: the near-total inaccessibility of Flash content to screen reader users. Although Flash had an accessibility framework built on Microsoft Active Accessibility…

  flash · transcoding · automatic repair · screen readers · alternative text

• aiBrowser for multimedia: introducing multimedia content accessibility for visually impaired users

  Hisashi Miyashita, Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  A companion paper to Sato et al.'s Flash-transcoding work, this 2007 paper from the same IBM Tokyo Research Lab team introduces aiBrowser — an accessible web browser purpose-built for multimedia-heavy sites of the era (ABC News Video, YouTube, Disney). The authors identify two…

  multimedia · streaming media · flash · DHTML · rich internet applications

• SADIe: exposing implicit information to improve accessibility

  Darren Lunn · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  Darren Lunn's Assets '07 demonstration paper introduces SADIe (Structural-Semantics for Accessibility and Device Independence), a transcoding system from the University of Manchester that uses Semantic Web ontologies to expose the implicit visual structure of web pages to screen…

  web accessibility · transcoding · semantic web · ontology · CSS

• Information overload in non-visual web transaction: context analysis spells relief

  Jalal Mahmud · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '07)

  This short ASSETS 2007 poster paper from Jalal Mahmud at Stony Brook University describes ongoing PhD research into reducing the information overload that blind users experience when completing multi-step web transactions — shopping, registrations, bill payments — using a screen…

  screen readers · non-visual web access · web page segmentation · context analysis · web transactions

• Developing usable CAPTCHAs for blind users

  Jonathan Holman, Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, John D'Arcy · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '07)

  This short ASSETS 2007 poster from a Towson University team led by Jonathan Lazar — joined by Jonathan Holman, Jinjuan Heidi Feng, and John D'Arcy of Notre Dame — addresses the long-standing accessibility problem that text-based CAPTCHAs (the distorted-letter image puzzles used…

  CAPTCHA · audio CAPTCHA · blindness and low vision · screen readers · web accessibility