Web Accessibility for Low-Bandwidth Input

这项研究旨在开发一种技术，使运动障碍的残疾人能够最有效地与计算机交流，特别是让他们能够访问网络。这项工作的一个重要部分将是开发一种工具，该工具可以为患有严重运动障碍的用户建模，并自动进行必要的调整，以提供访问网络的机会。例如，网页可以被修改为向用户显示关于所选链接的预览信息，以避免跟随错误链接然后再次退出的成本。初步工作确定了这种工具的七项要求，从导航支持到处理表格。随着工作的进展，这些要求将得到补充和完善。将建造两个满足这些要求的互补系统。一种是动态浏览器界面，实际的HTML保持不变。另一种是代理服务器，它可以修改HTML以使其更易于访问。两者都不要求网页的作者做出改变。第一种方法将允许对修改进行更精细的控制，并提供一个平台，用于根据错误和疲劳对输入信号和动作之间的不同映射进行实验。修改后的浏览器将能够跟踪错误并相应地调整其界面。它还将允许试验不同的方法来避免错误，如确认对话框。第二种方法将是独立于平台的，任何用户都可以使用，而无需安装任何特殊软件。它将允许在更广泛的范围内测试修改。这些自动化方法是必要的，因为期望网页设计师将必要的修改手工编码到他们的网站中是不现实的。此外，研究还将探索基于用户模型自动生成用户界面修改的可行性，这适用于其他常见和重要的应用程序，如电子邮件和文字处理。网络无障碍工作和这个更大的目标都有辅助技术之外的应用。例如，它们可能被用来增加其他输入能力有限的用户对网络的访问性，例如，对使用有限(9键)键盘的移动电话用户。这些系统将首先针对有能力的用户，然后是有运动障碍的用户进行开发和测试。他们将被公开部署，随着时间的推移，他们的影响将被研究。最后，这项研究将影响无障碍指南，使更多的网页和其他应用程序可以支持低带宽的可访问性。这项工作的贡献将是一套使网络在输入极其有限和可能出错的条件下更容易访问的技术。该系统将对运动障碍人士或任何能够访问有限输入设备的用户(如可穿戴计算机用户)有用。

This research is intended to develop technology that will allow motor-impaired disabled people to communicate with a computer most effectively, especially giving them access to the web. An important part of the work will be development of a tool that can model users with severe motor impairments and automatically make the adjustment necessary to provide access to the web. For example, a web page may be modified to show preview information about a selected link to user to avoid the cost of following a wrong link and then backing out again. Preliminary work has identified seven requirements for such a tool, ranging from navigation support to dealing with forms. These requirements will be augmented and refined as the work progresses. Two complementary systems will be built that meet these requirements. One is a dynamic browser interface and leaves the actual HTML unchanged. The other is a proxy server that modifies HTML to be more accessible. Neither requires the authors of web pages to make changes. The first approach will allow finer control over modifications and provide a platform for experimentation with different mappings between input signals and action based on errors and fatigue. The modified browser will be able to track errors and adjust its interface accordingly. It will also allow experimentation with different approaches to avoiding errors such as confirmation dialogs. The second approach will be platform independent, and available to any user without requiring that any special software be installed. It will allow the testing of modifications on a much wider scale. These automatic approaches are necessary because it is unrealistic to expect that web designers will handcode the necessary modifications into their websites.Additionally, the research will explore the feasibility of automatically generating user interface modifications based on a user model, something applicable to other common and important applications such as email and word processing. Both the web accessibility work and this larger goal have applications outside of assistive technology. For instance, they may be used to increase accessibility of the web to other users with limited input capabilities, for example, to mobile phone users with limited (9-key) keyboards.These systems will be developed and tested first with abled and then motor-impaired users. They will be deployed publicly, and their impact will be studied over time. Finally, the research will impact accessibility guidelines, so that more web pages and other applications can support low bandwidth accessibility. The contribution of this work will be a set of techniques for making the web more accessible in conditions where input is extremely limited and errors are likely. This system will be useful to people with motor disabilities, or any user with access to limited input devices, such as a wearable computer user.