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Search engines are a fundamental tool for retrieving specific and appropriate information on the Internet; for this reason it is essential for any user to be able to interact with simple, clear and accessible interfaces. In this paper we discuss the main differences between a visual layout and aural perception, and propose a set of guidelines for s...
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In this paper we address the explainability of web search engines. We propose two explainable elements on the search engine result page: a visualization of query term weights and a visualization of passage relevance. The idea is that search engines that indicate to the user why results are retrieved are valued higher by users and gain user trust. W...
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... The search process itself has been addressed by multiple researchers. The subject matter of several studies (e.g., References [2,33,43]) for people with visual impairments was the usability of existing search engines to retrieve HTML web pages. The approach BrookesTalk [58] used multiple voices to improve the retrieval process of web pages. ...
... Finally, multiple works already addressed the issues people with visual impairments have when using existing search engines (e.g., References [2,33,43]) to browse HTML web pages. Other approaches address web page retrieval for other groups of people with special needs such as children (e.g., Reference [25]), elderly people (e.g., Reference [1]), people with dyslexia (e.g., References [3,36]), and image retrieval tailored for people with color vision impairment (e.g., Reference [31]). ...
3D models are an important means for understanding spatial contexts. Today these models can be materialized by 3D printing, which is increasingly used at schools for people with visual impairments. In contrast to sighted people, people with visual impairments have so far, however, neither been able to search nor to print 3D models without assistance. This article describes our work to develop an aid for people with visual impairments that would facilitate autonomous searching for and printing of 3D models. In our initial study, we determined the requirements to accomplish this task by means of a questionnaire and developed a first approach that allowed personal computer-based 3D printing. An extended approach allowed searching and printing using common smartphones. In our architecture, technical details of 3D printers are abstracted by a separate component that can be accessed via Wi-Fi independently of the actual 3D printer used. It comprises a search of the models in an annotated database and 3D model retrieval from the internet. The whole process can be controlled by voice interaction. The feasibility of autonomous 3D printing for people with visual impairments is shown with a first user study. Our second user study examines the usability of the user interface when searching for 3D models on the internet and preparing them for the materialization. The participants were able to define important printing settings, whereas other printing parameters could be determined algorithmically.
... According to recent estimates the number of BVI individuals is likely to grow [45,23] . For this reason, in the last few years, there have been major efforts in designing and developing devices and systems able to assist users with visual impairment, to address navigation and obstacle avoidance [68,20,16,37,65,38], wayfinding [14,13,60,42,67,61,9], automatic reading, accessible access to web, apps, and displays [33,35,18,59,64,44,22,41,66,52,19], object recognition [56,51,12,10,63], multiple object detection [39,40]. ...
Blind or visually impaired (BVI) individuals are capable of identifying an object in their hands by combining the available visual cues (if available) with manipulation. It is harder for them to associate the object with a specific brand, a model, or a type. Starting from this observation, we propose a collaborative system designed to deliver visual feedback automatically and to help the user filling this semantic gap. Our visual recognition module is implemented by means of an image retrieval procedure that provides real-time feedback, performs the computation locally on the device, and is scalable to new categories and instances. We carry out a thorough experimental analysis of the visual recognition module, which includes a comparative analysis with the state of the art. We also present two different system implementations that we test with the help of BVI users to evaluate the technical soundness, the usability, and the effectiveness of the proposed concept.
... They also discussed the most significant differences between an aural perception and visual layout. Furthermore, by means of a screen reader or voice synthesizer, they describe the main design issues affecting the user interface of a search engine when a sightless user interacts [7]. They also discussed accessibility and usability requirements of interface for sightless persons. ...
... In this technology, Google added an audio component in response to online petitions and outcry from visuallyimpaired users. It is modified for simple search and result exploration [7]. It works with the noise free environment but users have to click "search by voice" which is difficult for the visually impaired users who have no experience of using Google before. ...
... Several vision substitution devices have been developed in recent years, the bulk of them devised for navigation and obstacle avoidance (see [7][8][9][10] for detailed surveys of such devices). Extensive research has also been conducted on printed information access and web access for the visually impaired [11][12][13][14]. However, other problems, such as face recognition [15] and object recognition, have received relatively less attention, though the need for assistive devices in these domains is just as urgent. ...
Though several electronic assistive devices have been developed for the visually impaired in the past few decades, however, relatively few solutions have been devised to aid them in recognizing generic objects in their environment, particularly indoors. Nevertheless, research in this area is gaining momentum. Among the various technologies being utilized for this purpose, computer vision based solutions are emerging as one of the most promising options mainly due to their affordability and accessibility. This paper provides an overview of the various technologies that have been developed in recent years to assist the visually impaired in recognizing generic objects in an indoors environment with a focus on approaches based on computer vision. It aims to introduce researchers to the latest trends in this area as well as to serve as a resource for developers who wish to incorporate such solutions into their own work.
... Most of these systems focus on navigation and obstacle detection: e.g., vision based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) has been recently proposed to support blind mobility [14][15][16]. Extensive research has also been conducted on printed information and web access mainly by harnessing the power of OCR [17][18][19][20]. Relatively less attention has been directed towards application areas such as generic object recognition [21,22] and face recognition but research in these domains has started gaining momentum in the past few years. ...
The inability to recognize known individuals in the
absence of audio or haptic cues severely limits the visually
impaired in their social interactions and puts them at risk
from a security perspective. In recent years, several
prototype systems have been developed to aid this population
with the face recognition task. This paper aims to provide an
overview of the state of the art in this domain, highlighting
the strengths and weaknesses of different solutions and
discusses some of the issues that need to be addressed and
resolved to expedite the practical deployment and
widespread acceptance of such systems. (Full paper available for free download under open access policy at http://worldcomp-proceedings.com/proc/p2013/IKE3410.pdf)
... Other assistive technologies such as braille displays were not used in this study. Leporini et al. (2004A) and Leporini et al. (2004B) suggested the use of list elements displaying the search results. For this reason we used lists as well when trying to navigate the web search interfaces. ...
This paper compares two new freely available software plugins for MS PowerPoint and Word documents that we have developed at the ZHAW with similar tools with respect to important accessibility criteria. Our plugins [1, 2, 3] allow the analysis of accessibility issues and consequently the generation of fully accessible PDF documents. The document authors using these plugins require no specific accessibility knowledge. The plugins are based on a flexible software architecture concept [1] that allows the automatic generation of fully accessible PDF documents originating from various authoring tools, such as Adobe InDesign [5], Word or PowerPoint [6, 7]. Other available plugins, on the other hand, need accessibility knowledge in order to use them properly and effectively.
... For example, older persons usually have difficulty in reading small fonts and prefer pastel colors. Sequentiality is one of the barriers found by those visually disabled when browsing a site with a screen reader (or by means of a program that amplifies the interface): the user is only able to access a limited portion of the screen and, thus, loses out on the idea of the general context of the page at hand [12]. Although these users lose the notion of context, they end up developing certain skills, such as excellent hearing and memory. ...
... This is why HTML language tags that can be identified by the screen reader become an important element in the information perception process of visually impaired users. They allow the reader to provide information about the structure of the site [12]. As the perception of the system is influenced by the experiences of a person, each user creates his/her own conceptual model; since it is highly unlikely that people without special needs undergo similar experiences when surfing the web as those with deficiencies, the models for disabled people tend to be distinct from the models for non-disabled people [4]. ...
... This is why it is essential to adopt the practice of signaling each paragraph in HTML code by means an element in this case a line break in that position without describing the preceding or succeeding type of text). One of the problems in using a screen reader is that navigation on links is sequential [12]. This can slow the links in order to restart reading the page and finally arrive at the desired content. ...
The user interface should meet the expectations and needs of a variety of users. They should be accessible by any person, independently of their physical, perceptual-motor, social and cultural capabilities. The current research aims to show that the development of accessible Web applications goes beyond the design of sites in compliance with accessibility guidelines: usability issues should also be addressed. The interaction between visually-impaired persons and several sites was observed and the problems detected in this process, were analyzed. The analysis was based on a taxonomy of non-functional requirements related to usability. This taxonomy was aligned with the accessibility guidelines aiming to help professionals in the identification of accessibility and usability problems that may avoided or minimized during requirements planning, and thus, facilitate the interaction of visually-impaired users with the Internet and provide sites that offer content that is easy to understand and are easy to navigate.
... Verifiers considered that guidelines nos. 1, 4, 6, 12, and 14 were essential and should be given the highest priority. In addition, specific guidelines were proposed to simplify the interaction with search engines for the blind [1, 17, 18]. Leporini et al. [17] proposed three guidelines for user interface design, (1) page content serialization, (2) navigation by tab key and special commands, and (3) what is offered by a visual layout differs from one provided for aural perception. ...
... In addition, specific guidelines were proposed to simplify the interaction with search engines for the blind [1, 17, 18]. Leporini et al. [17] proposed three guidelines for user interface design, (1) page content serialization, (2) navigation by tab key and special commands, and (3) what is offered by a visual layout differs from one provided for aural perception. In addition, eight principles were proposed to be considered in a search engine interface layout, such as ''Highlighting the search result,'' ''Arranging the results,'' ''Navigating more quickly,'' etc. Andronico et al. [1] further verified some of thee guidelines and principles. ...
... Providing better search technologies and adding navigation assistance to Web browsers would be a great help for blind people. Based on the guideline proposed by Leporini et al. [17], ''What is offered by a visual layout differs from one provided for aural perception,'' a specialized Web site for people with visual impairments was designed. The main purpose was to help blind persons to use the assistive functions of this especially designed Web site and to do it by themselves. ...
The Google search engine was studied as a Web prototype to be modified and improved for blind users. A Specialized Search Engine for the Blind (SSEB) was developed with an accessible interface and improved functions (searching assistance functions, user-centered functions, and specialized design for the blind). An experiment was conducted with twelve participants, both blind and sighted, to verify the effects of SSEB. The performance was better with the SSEB than with the Google search engine, and the participants also showed higher satisfactions with the SSEB. Interface considerations for designing an accessible Web site for blind users are important. The users of SSEB could in the future be expanded to include most, if not all, visually impaired people, since the World Wide Web and all Internet resources should ideally be accessible to everyone.
... One of the tasks was a search engine task for which the authors reported that visually impaired participants took ten minutes longer than sighted users and that the navigation on the search engine was frustrating (Craven 2004). Despite a lack of previous work on the search behaviour of visually impaired searchers, there have been research efforts (Andronico et al. 2006b;Bigham et al. 2007;Buzzi et al. 2004;Leporini et al. 2004) to address accessibility challenges faced by the visually impaired community. A set of guidelines for designing accessible search interfaces was proposed in (Leporini et al. 2004). ...
... One of the tasks was a search engine task for which the authors reported that visually impaired participants took ten minutes longer than sighted users and that the navigation on the search engine was frustrating (Craven 2004). Despite a lack of previous work on the search behaviour of visually impaired searchers, there have been research efforts (Andronico et al. 2006b;Bigham et al. 2007;Buzzi et al. 2004;Leporini et al. 2004) to address accessibility challenges faced by the visually impaired community. A set of guidelines for designing accessible search interfaces was proposed in (Leporini et al. 2004). ...
... Despite a lack of previous work on the search behaviour of visually impaired searchers, there have been research efforts (Andronico et al. 2006b;Bigham et al. 2007;Buzzi et al. 2004;Leporini et al. 2004) to address accessibility challenges faced by the visually impaired community. A set of guidelines for designing accessible search interfaces was proposed in (Leporini et al. 2004). ...
I am in the second year of my PhD in the School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science and my area of research overlaps Information Retrieval and Human-Computer Interaction. In this project, I study the information seeking behaviour of visually impaired searchers and focus on the challenges they face when using online search interfaces. I propose to design and implement an accessible search interface that considers the needs of users of screen readers and also advocate for cognitive load to play an important role in design decisions.
... In the English page, more headings have been applied. In general, in order to facilitate the page overview via screen reader, heading levels and hidden labels should be applied (see [6] and [7]). ...
... Based on the preliminary testing and thus on the main difficulties observed in navigating through the search, result and editing functions, we suggest several elements that should be kept in mind when designing a Wiki interface. These suggestions also take into account the set of guidelines and criteria we previously proposed (in [6] and [7]). ...
Today wikis are becoming increasingly widespread, and offer great benefits in a variety of collaborative environments. Therefore, to be universally valuable, wiki systems should be easy to use for anyone, regardless of ability. This paper describes obstacles that a blind user may encounter when interacting via screen reader with Wikipedia, and offers some suggestions for improving usability.
