Literature Reviews — A11y Paradise

(Natural Language) Interaction with Graphical Representations of Statistical Data

Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Louis Boucher (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada presents iGraph-Lite, a system that makes statistical graphs published in "The Daily" (Statistics Canada's main dissemination publication) accessible to blind and visually impaired users throu…

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 a…

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 expl…

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: w…

Combining SADIe and AxsJAX to Improve the Accessibility of Web Content

Darren Lunn, Simon Harper, Sean Bechhofer (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper from the University of Manchester presents a prototype system that combines two accessibility approaches — SADIe and Google's AxsJAX framework — to improve web content access for visually impaired screen reader users. SADIe (Semantic Annot…

TeleWeb: accessible service for web browsing via phone

Yevgen Borodin, Glenn Dausch, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

This paper presents TeleWeb, a telephony service that enables web browsing via any standard telephone using speech and keypad input. Built on top of the HearSay non-visual web browser engine from Stony Brook University, TeleWeb allows users to call a…

Getting mobile with mobile devices: using the web to improve transit accessibility

Darren Minifie, Yvonne Coady (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

This paper proposes a mobile web-based architecture for making public transit accessible to blind and visually impaired travelers. Drawing on direct feedback from the blind community (including one of the authors, who is visually impaired), the paper…

TextSL: a screen reader accessible interface for second life

Bugra Oktay, Eelke Folmer (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper presents TextSL, a text-based command interface for Second Life that enables visually impaired users to explore and interact with the virtual world using a screen reader (JAWS). Inspired by multi-user dungeon (MUD) text adventure games lik…

Modelling web navigation with the user in mind

Ruslan Fayzrakhmanov, Max Göbel, Wolfgang Holzinger, Bernhard Krüpl, Andreas Mager, Robert Baumgartner (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper introduces the ABBA (Advanced Barrier-free Browser Accessibility) framework, a novel approach to screen reader design that replaces traditional sequential DOM-based navigation with a multi-axial navigation model. The core insight is that c…

3D HapticWebBrowser: towards universal web navigation for the visually impaired

Nikolaos Kaklanis, Konstantinos Votis, Konstantinos Moustakas, Dimitrios Tzovaras (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper presents the 3D HapticWebBrowser, a free open-source web browser that uses haptic (touch feedback) technology to enable visually impaired users to navigate web pages and explore 2D maps. The system transforms HTML elements into "hapgets" —…