Kurt Weimann

Augmenting icons for deaf computer users

Tooltips (TTs) can be used to make icons more understandable to users. However, text-based tooltips will not assist users with print disabilities. Four types of TTs to assist deaf and hearing impaired users were implemented: Sign Language, Picture (an enlarged icon and text explanation of the function), Human Mouth and Digital Lips (the last two to assist in lip reading). An evaluation of 16 TTs of each type with 15 deaf users found that the Sign Language and Picture TTs were very positively rated on satisfaction and understanding and would be used again, but that Human Mouth and Digital Lips were of no assistance in their current implementation to deaf users in lip reading the names of icons.

Adaptation of Multimedia Browsing Techniques

Documents become more accessible if they are enriched with alternative media. The paradigm of “one document for all” is challenged by the needs of heterogeneous reader groups when reading multimedia documents. The user interface to allow browsing is to be adapted through assistive devices such as screen readers, but in time-dependant presentations adaptation is required to suit each user group. Some criteria and approaches implemented in the MultiReader system are being discussed.

Editing a test suite for accessibility of interactive web sites

A test suite is a set of tools and data to ensure quality of a software application such as a dynamic web site. Reliability of page by page web accessibility tests is difficult to achieve as this requires defining appropriate partitions of the set of all web pages. We propose a partitioning method based on additional information about reading behaviour by users especially for measuring readability and ease of navigation. An upper limit for the path length and hence size of the partition is developed. We present a test case editor to describe user group specific testing scenarios and additional types of tests.