Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Tactile web browsing for blind people

  • Published:
Multimedia Tools and Applications Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Information on the World Wide Web becomes more and more important for our society. For blind people this is a chance to access more information for their everyday life. In this paper we propose novel methods to present web pages including graphical information on a tactile output device. We present a Mozilla Firefox Extension for the tactile rendering of web pages and for the handling of user interactions. This approach benefits from the Firefox built-in web page handling including parsing of HTML documents, formatting with cascading style sheets (CSS), handling of dynamic web content controlled by JavaScript code, etc. Graphical information can be explored and filtered interactively in a special mode for raster images and Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG). Mathematical expressions encoded in the mathematical markup language (MathML) are transformed directly into LaTeX or into a notation for blind people. The tactile web browser supports feedback that is provided via voice output.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Asakawa C, Itoh T (1998) User interface of a home page reader. In: Proceedings of the third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies ACM SIGCAPH Conference on Assistive Technologies, pp 149–156

  2. Berlin B, Kay P (1969) Basic color terms: their universality and evolution. University of California Press

  3. Buyukkokten O, Kaljuvee O, Garcia-Molina H, Paepcke A, Winograd T (2002) Efficient web browsing on handheld devices using page and form summarization. ACM Trans Inf Syst (TOIS) 20:82–115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Chisholm W, Vanderheiden G (1999) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), World Wide Web Consortium. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/

  5. Christian K (2000) Design of haptic and tactile interfaces for blind users. Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland

  6. De Witt JC, Hakkinen MT (1998) Surfing the web with pwWebSpeak. In: Proceedings of the Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference. California State University Northridge

  7. Diepstraten J, Görke M, Ertl T (2004) Remote line rendering for mobile devices. In: Proceedings of IEEE Computer Graphics International (CGI)’04, pp 454–461

  8. Earl C, Leventhal J (1999) A survey of windows screen reader users: results and recommendations. J Vis Imp Blindness 93(3):174–177

    Google Scholar 

  9. Freedom Scientific (2007) JAWS for Windows. http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp

  10. Goble C, Harper S, Stevens R (2002) The travails of visually impaired web travellers. In: Proceedings of the Eleventh ACM on Hypertext and Hypermedia Conference, ACM Press, New York, pp 1–10

    Google Scholar 

  11. Gunderson J, Mendelson R (1997) Usability of world wide web browsers by persons with visual impairments. In: Proceedings of the RESNA Annual Conference

  12. Karshmer AI, Guo H-F, Gupta G, Pontelli E, Miesenberger K, Ammalai N, Gopal D, Batusic M, Stöger B, Palmer B (2004) UMA: a system for universal mathematics accessibility. In: Proceedings of the ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  13. Kawai Y, Tomita F (1996) Interactive tactile display system: a support system for the visually disabled to recognize 3D objects. In: Proceedings of the Second Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies, pp 45–50

  14. Kochanek D (1990) Ein hypertext-system für blinde zeiungsleser (Nr. 718). Diploma thesis, Department of Computer Science, Universität Stuttgart

  15. Kottapally K, Ngo C, Reddy R, Pontelli E, Son TC, Gillan D (2002) Towards the creation of accessibility agents for non-visual navigation of the we. In: ACM SIGCAPH Computers and the Physically Handicapped, pp 73–74, June–September

  16. Kurze M (1997) Interaktion Blinder mit virtuellen Welten auf der Basis von zweidimensionalen taktilen Darstellungen. In: Tagungsband Software-Ergonomie 97

  17. Kurze M (1999) Methoden zur computergenerierten Darstellung räumlicher Gegenstände für Blinde auf taktilen Medien. Ph.D. thesis, Department of mathematics and Computer Science, Freie Universität Berlin

  18. McLaren K (1976) The development of the CIE 1976 (L*a*b*) uniform colour space and colour-difference formula. Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists

  19. Mozilla Accessibility Project (2007) Seamonkey cross reference: seamonkey/accessible/public/. http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/accessible/public/

  20. Opera Software ASA (2007) Opera’s small-screen rendering. http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/smallscreen/

  21. Petrie H, Morley S, Majoe D (1997) Initial design and evaluation of an interface to hypermedia systems for blind users. In: Proceedings of the Eighth nternational ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, pp 48–56

  22. Pontelli E, Gillan D, Xiong W, Saad E, Gupta G, Karshmer AI (2002) Navigation of HTML tables, frames, and XML fragments. In: Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies

  23. Rotard M, Bosse K, Schweikhardt W, Ertl T (2003) Access to mathematical expressions in mathML for the blind. In: Proceedings of the HCI International Conference, pp 1325–1329

  24. Rotard M, Ertl T (2004) Tactile access to scalable vector graphics for people with visual impairment. In: Proceedings of the SVG open conference. http://www.svgopen.org/2004/papers/TactileAccessToSVG/

  25. Rotard M, Ertl T (2006) Tactile 3D-graphics for blind people. Workshop: accessible media 2006 Potsdam, Germany

  26. Rotard M, Knödler S, Ertl T (2005) Tactile web browser for the visually disabled. In: Proceedings of the Sixteenth ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia

  27. Rotard M, Otte K, Ertl T (2004) Exploring scalable vector graphics for visually impaired users. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Computer Helping People with Special Needs, pp 725–730

  28. Schweikhardt W (1980) A computer based education system for the blind. In: Lavington SH (ed) Information Processing 80, North Holland, pp 951–954

  29. Schweikhardt W, Klöpfer K (1984) Computer aided conversion of videotex-graphics into a tactile representation. In: Tagungsband der Internationalen Konferenz über Reliefdarstellungen für Blinde

  30. Weber G (1989) Interaktive Dialogtechniken für blinde Rechenbenutzer. Ph.D. thesis, Department of Computer Science, Universität Stuttgart

  31. World Wide Web Consortium (2003) Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) 1.1 specification (W3C recommendation 14 January 2003). http://www.w3.org/TR/SVG/

  32. Zajicek M, Powell C, Reeves C, Griffiths J (1998) Web browsing for the visually impaired. In: Computers and Assistive Technology ICCHP’98, pp 161–169

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Visualization and Interactive Systems Institute, Universität Stuttgart, Universitätsstraße 38, 70569, Stuttgart, Germany

    Martin Rotard, Christiane Taras & Thomas Ertl

Authors
  1. Martin Rotard
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Christiane Taras
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Thomas Ertl
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martin Rotard.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Rotard, M., Taras, C. & Ertl, T. Tactile web browsing for blind people. Multimed Tools Appl 37, 53–69 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-007-0170-3

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-007-0170-3

Keywords

Search

Navigation