If our formal education systems were to be graded on achieving the following assignment: "to enable all students to reach their diverse, full potential, so that they can be prosperous, self-guided contributors to our global community," our systems of education would be flunking. The impact of this failure will exponentially worsen over time, given socio-technical trends. To achieve this crucial learning goal we need more than incremental improvement. We need disruptive innovation. Can the Web be the disruptive impetus and generative scaffolding for an education system that can achieve this goal? How can we both reform and leverage Web accessibility approaches to support this mission? These are the questions explored in this article. Complex adaptive systems, emerging decentralized systems of trust, "small" and "thick" data analytics, Internet of things sensing, open platforms, but most importantly -- connected communities, are all recruited in the thought experiment to craft a candidate response.
{"title":"Life-long learning on the inclusive web","authors":"J. Treviranus","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899476","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899476","url":null,"abstract":"If our formal education systems were to be graded on achieving the following assignment: \"to enable all students to reach their diverse, full potential, so that they can be prosperous, self-guided contributors to our global community,\" our systems of education would be flunking. The impact of this failure will exponentially worsen over time, given socio-technical trends. To achieve this crucial learning goal we need more than incremental improvement. We need disruptive innovation. Can the Web be the disruptive impetus and generative scaffolding for an education system that can achieve this goal? How can we both reform and leverage Web accessibility approaches to support this mission? These are the questions explored in this article. Complex adaptive systems, emerging decentralized systems of trust, \"small\" and \"thick\" data analytics, Internet of things sensing, open platforms, but most importantly -- connected communities, are all recruited in the thought experiment to craft a candidate response.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"122 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114572353","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mathematics support on the web is currently very limited mainly due to the lack of browser support for the dedicated markup language MathML. While for visual display JavaScript libraries like MathJax can ensure flawless rendering of formulas across all platforms and browsers, there currently exists no system independent assistive technology solutions for Mathematics. We report on the attempt to transform MathJax into a universal rendering solution, providing accessibility also for readers with visual, print, and motor impairments. As our goal is to integrate seamlessly with other assistive technology solutions, we are faced with a number of technical challenges to provide a consistent user experience, regardless of the particular combination of platform, browser, and screen reader employed by readers. This paper presents MathJax's accessibility features and some of the technical challenges to motivate a wish-list for future standards to enhance web accessibility for STEM content.
{"title":"Towards universal rendering in MathJax","authors":"D. Cervone, Peter Krautzberger, V. Sorge","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899494","url":null,"abstract":"Mathematics support on the web is currently very limited mainly due to the lack of browser support for the dedicated markup language MathML. While for visual display JavaScript libraries like MathJax can ensure flawless rendering of formulas across all platforms and browsers, there currently exists no system independent assistive technology solutions for Mathematics. We report on the attempt to transform MathJax into a universal rendering solution, providing accessibility also for readers with visual, print, and motor impairments. As our goal is to integrate seamlessly with other assistive technology solutions, we are faced with a number of technical challenges to provide a consistent user experience, regardless of the particular combination of platform, browser, and screen reader employed by readers. This paper presents MathJax's accessibility features and some of the technical challenges to motivate a wish-list for future standards to enhance web accessibility for STEM content.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130309182","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The rapid accumulation of user generated content on the Internet provides researchers with abundant information to extract knowledge from. It also provides HCI and accessibility practitioners with a new direction to explore and understand users requirements beyond traditional approaches. In my work, I create a tool that consists of both text-mining and machining learning methods to extract essential focuses of design out of the data collected from social networks. This tool can be used at the initial stage of a product design life-cycle by designers to collect key design aspects at a fairly low cost.
{"title":"Using data from social media websites to inspire the design of assistive technology","authors":"Xing Yu","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899501","url":null,"abstract":"The rapid accumulation of user generated content on the Internet provides researchers with abundant information to extract knowledge from. It also provides HCI and accessibility practitioners with a new direction to explore and understand users requirements beyond traditional approaches. In my work, I create a tool that consists of both text-mining and machining learning methods to extract essential focuses of design out of the data collected from social networks. This tool can be used at the initial stage of a product design life-cycle by designers to collect key design aspects at a fairly low cost.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"203 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131646880","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Maria Claudia Buzzi, M. Buzzi, Erico Perrone, Beatrice Rapisarda, C. Senette
Learning environments have been profoundly reshaped by pervasive technology. New educational methodologies take full advantage of ICT in a mobile customized user-friendly environment, to support learning and stimulate individuals' potential. Unfortunately, technology-enhanced learning tools are not often designed with accessibility in mind, although they can greatly benefit the personal empowerment and inclusion of special-needs people. To address this gap, a Web platform has been created for delivering accessible games to people with Down syndrome. Since personalization, orderliness and positive reinforcement are crucial to learning in these subjects, the platform offers a personalized safe environment for learning, conforming to behavioral analysis principles. Learning analytics are incorporated in the platform for easy monitoring of student progress via Web interfaces. The participatory design driving the development of the learning platform allowed the customization of the games' discriminative stimuli, difficulty levels and reinforcement, as well as the creation of a game "engine" to easily set up new personalized exercises. These customization features make the game platform usable by a larger audience, including individuals with learning difficulties and autism.
{"title":"Learning games for the cognitively impaired people","authors":"Maria Claudia Buzzi, M. Buzzi, Erico Perrone, Beatrice Rapisarda, C. Senette","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899487","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899487","url":null,"abstract":"Learning environments have been profoundly reshaped by pervasive technology. New educational methodologies take full advantage of ICT in a mobile customized user-friendly environment, to support learning and stimulate individuals' potential. Unfortunately, technology-enhanced learning tools are not often designed with accessibility in mind, although they can greatly benefit the personal empowerment and inclusion of special-needs people. To address this gap, a Web platform has been created for delivering accessible games to people with Down syndrome. Since personalization, orderliness and positive reinforcement are crucial to learning in these subjects, the platform offers a personalized safe environment for learning, conforming to behavioral analysis principles. Learning analytics are incorporated in the platform for easy monitoring of student progress via Web interfaces. The participatory design driving the development of the learning platform allowed the customization of the games' discriminative stimuli, difficulty levels and reinforcement, as well as the creation of a game \"engine\" to easily set up new personalized exercises. These customization features make the game platform usable by a larger audience, including individuals with learning difficulties and autism.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"116 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122116804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
My PhD research aims to develop novel solutions to the challenge of identifying web page structure through the visual analysis of web pages as images. The intention is to then combine this back end design with various front end applications in order to provide improved web experiences for users with assistive needs (e.g. assisting visually impaired users by supporting more selective screenreader output, or improving experiences of users with cognitive deficits by allowing reduction of clutter or zooming in on selected web page content). I propose to build a comprehensive computer vision-based system to analyse the semantic structure of web pages based purely on an image of the rendered page, which will produce a rich representation of the page as a tree of regions labelled according to their semantic role. Most research into web page segmentation has focused on the use of the structure of the DOM tree and visual features derived from properties specified in the DOM tree. I argue, however, that the image of the rendered page may be a better representation to use, since it is created by the page designer to convey the structure of the page to the user, while the source code and DOM tree are simply intended to cause the browser's rendering engine to produce the correct appearance, and treat many types of content as black boxes. Additionally, my proposed system uses exactly the information seen by a user regardless of implementation method; this gives advantages in implementation-independence and versatility.
{"title":"Computer vision-based analysis of web page structure for assistive interfaces","authors":"M. Cormier","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899506","url":null,"abstract":"My PhD research aims to develop novel solutions to the challenge of identifying web page structure through the visual analysis of web pages as images. The intention is to then combine this back end design with various front end applications in order to provide improved web experiences for users with assistive needs (e.g. assisting visually impaired users by supporting more selective screenreader output, or improving experiences of users with cognitive deficits by allowing reduction of clutter or zooming in on selected web page content). I propose to build a comprehensive computer vision-based system to analyse the semantic structure of web pages based purely on an image of the rendered page, which will produce a rich representation of the page as a tree of regions labelled according to their semantic role. Most research into web page segmentation has focused on the use of the structure of the DOM tree and visual features derived from properties specified in the DOM tree. I argue, however, that the image of the rendered page may be a better representation to use, since it is created by the page designer to convey the structure of the page to the user, while the source code and DOM tree are simply intended to cause the browser's rendering engine to produce the correct appearance, and treat many types of content as black boxes. Additionally, my proposed system uses exactly the information seen by a user regardless of implementation method; this gives advantages in implementation-independence and versatility.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129520894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Vagner Figuerêdo de Santana, R. Guimarães, Andréa Britto Mattos
Vocational training of people with disabilities (PwD) can potentially improve social and economic prospects, but at the same time, it can be significantly challenging due to the need for specialized training and technology. Unfortunately, in developing countries this problem is magnified because, in general, low-income groups have limited access to appropriate content and assistive technologies. In this paper, we present initial findings from a qualitative field study of computer-mediated vocational training for low-income students with intellectual disability (ID) in Brazil's largest urban area. The observations took place during 3 computer-based training sessions, which involved 23 students with ID. Based on data gathered from observations and semi-structured interviews with 2 instructors, we describe and discuss strategies they employ to teach heterogeneous groups of students with ID. We also examine some obstacles that our participants usually face during the classes at the computer lab and present suggestions for future initiatives that could better support instructors and students with ID in the learning process.
{"title":"Identifying challenges and opportunities in computer-based vocational training for low-income communities of people with intellectual disabilities","authors":"Vagner Figuerêdo de Santana, R. Guimarães, Andréa Britto Mattos","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899480","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899480","url":null,"abstract":"Vocational training of people with disabilities (PwD) can potentially improve social and economic prospects, but at the same time, it can be significantly challenging due to the need for specialized training and technology. Unfortunately, in developing countries this problem is magnified because, in general, low-income groups have limited access to appropriate content and assistive technologies. In this paper, we present initial findings from a qualitative field study of computer-mediated vocational training for low-income students with intellectual disability (ID) in Brazil's largest urban area. The observations took place during 3 computer-based training sessions, which involved 23 students with ID. Based on data gathered from observations and semi-structured interviews with 2 instructors, we describe and discuss strategies they employ to teach heterogeneous groups of students with ID. We also examine some obstacles that our participants usually face during the classes at the computer lab and present suggestions for future initiatives that could better support instructors and students with ID in the learning process.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"184 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131350109","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Traditional Parkinson's Disease (PD) assessment techniques are inaccurate, sporadic and subjective. Although recent works have used wearable devices to try to overcome these issues, most interfere with people's routines, are uncomfortable to use and unsuitable for long-term assessments. In contrast, my approach aims to monitor PD in a longitudinal, naturalistic, non-disruptive and non-intrusive way. It uses smartphones to log social, environmental and web interaction data about people and their surroundings. This data is complemented with other web data sources and then processed to infer a set of metrics (a latent behavioural variable or LBV) of people's activities and habits. Then, LBVs' trends are quantified and mapped to the progression of the disease. During a first pilot study, I collected a dataset with ≈290 million records that has 34.5x more rows and scanned 4x more data sources than state-of-the-art sets. I used this data to identify six possible PD-related LBVs. This project aims to get a more accurate disease picture and to reduce the physical and psychological burden of traditional and other technology-based assessment methods. Ultimately, the work has the potential to save people's time and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health services.
{"title":"Using web interaction to monitor parkinson's disease progression through behavioural inferences on the web","authors":"Julio Vega","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899502","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899502","url":null,"abstract":"Traditional Parkinson's Disease (PD) assessment techniques are inaccurate, sporadic and subjective. Although recent works have used wearable devices to try to overcome these issues, most interfere with people's routines, are uncomfortable to use and unsuitable for long-term assessments. In contrast, my approach aims to monitor PD in a longitudinal, naturalistic, non-disruptive and non-intrusive way. It uses smartphones to log social, environmental and web interaction data about people and their surroundings. This data is complemented with other web data sources and then processed to infer a set of metrics (a latent behavioural variable or LBV) of people's activities and habits. Then, LBVs' trends are quantified and mapped to the progression of the disease. During a first pilot study, I collected a dataset with ≈290 million records that has 34.5x more rows and scanned 4x more data sources than state-of-the-art sets. I used this data to identify six possible PD-related LBVs. This project aims to get a more accurate disease picture and to reduce the physical and psychological burden of traditional and other technology-based assessment methods. Ultimately, the work has the potential to save people's time and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health services.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"73 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122292961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Carlos M. Duarte, Inês Matos, J. Messias, A. Salvado, Carlos M. Duarte, L. Carriço
This paper presents a study assessing the effect of development technology choices on the accessibility quality of web pages. We used an off-the-shelf tool to identify technologies over a set of 1669 pages, each from a different domain. We have focused, in particular, in programming languages, Web and JavaScript frameworks, and content management systems categories. Simultaneously, we used an automatic accessibility evaluation tool to assess the accessibility of those pages. The study shows statistical evidence that some technologies lead to more accessible pages, within all categories.
{"title":"Development technologies impact in web accessibility","authors":"Carlos M. Duarte, Inês Matos, J. Messias, A. Salvado, Carlos M. Duarte, L. Carriço","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899498","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899498","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a study assessing the effect of development technology choices on the accessibility quality of web pages. We used an off-the-shelf tool to identify technologies over a set of 1669 pages, each from a different domain. We have focused, in particular, in programming languages, Web and JavaScript frameworks, and content management systems categories. Simultaneously, we used an automatic accessibility evaluation tool to assess the accessibility of those pages. The study shows statistical evidence that some technologies lead to more accessible pages, within all categories.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122236151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In this paper, we present TactBack, a novel way to haptically represent braille characters on a off-the-shelf mobile device and a smartwatch using vibration. TactBack can be used for a wide variety of scenarios such as training braille characters to the deaf-blind, providing secure non-audio feedback for pin/password entry, and as an educational tool for learning braille. We discuss the details of design and implementation of TactBack, and report on a preliminary user study with 15 participants. Our evaluation shows that participants could recognize individual braille characters with minimal training using TactBack. We present some of the scenarios where TactBack could provide substantial benefit over traditional talkback.
{"title":"TactBack: VibroTactile braille output using smartphone and smartwatch for visually impaired","authors":"Aritra Dhar, A. Nittala, Kuldeep Yadav","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899514","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899514","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper, we present TactBack, a novel way to haptically represent braille characters on a off-the-shelf mobile device and a smartwatch using vibration. TactBack can be used for a wide variety of scenarios such as training braille characters to the deaf-blind, providing secure non-audio feedback for pin/password entry, and as an educational tool for learning braille. We discuss the details of design and implementation of TactBack, and report on a preliminary user study with 15 participants. Our evaluation shows that participants could recognize individual braille characters with minimal training using TactBack. We present some of the scenarios where TactBack could provide substantial benefit over traditional talkback.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129403004","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The aim of this extended abstract is to demonstrate a framework that provides a novel solution for evaluating the mobile web accessibility of electronic text for print impaired people in Higher Education (HE). The current framework explores over 500 device settings. Furthermore, the scope of this research is outlined alongside two research questions. The paper then concludes by suggesting the potential impact this research could have on existing standards, the public availability of metadata and guidelines, and the automatic generation of personalised eTexts as per user needs.
{"title":"Evaluating the mobile web accessibility of electronic text for print impaired people in higher education","authors":"Neil Rogers, M. Wald, E. Draffan","doi":"10.1145/2899475.2899504","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2899475.2899504","url":null,"abstract":"The aim of this extended abstract is to demonstrate a framework that provides a novel solution for evaluating the mobile web accessibility of electronic text for print impaired people in Higher Education (HE). The current framework explores over 500 device settings. Furthermore, the scope of this research is outlined alongside two research questions. The paper then concludes by suggesting the potential impact this research could have on existing standards, the public availability of metadata and guidelines, and the automatic generation of personalised eTexts as per user needs.","PeriodicalId":337838,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2016-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121080963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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