User-tailored web accessibility evaluations

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a framework and system to evaluate the accessibility of web pages according to the individual requirements of users with disabilities. These requirements not only consist of users' abilities, but also users' assistive technologies and the delivery context. In order to ascertain interoperability with other software components, user requirements are specified taking advantage of the extensibility of the W3C CC/PP recommendation and other feature-specification vocabularies. An evaluation tool capable of understanding these specifications generates evaluation reports that are tailored to the user's individual needs. Quantitative accessibility measures resulting from personalized evaluation reports can be used to improve the web browsing experience for users with disabilities, such as through adaptive navigation support and by sorting the results of search engines according to users' personal requirements. In addition, developers benefit from personalized evaluations when developing websites for specific audiences.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues
          Subjects: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.1 MODELS AND PRINCIPLES
      H.1.2 User/Machine Systems
          Subjects: Human factors
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Evaluation/methodology
      H.5.4 Hypertext/Hypermedia
          Subjects: User issues

General Terms:
Human Factors, Measurement, Standardization

Keywords:
assistive technologies, guidelines, personalization, user-tailored evaluation, web accessibility