Abstract
Contemporary developments in digital and interactive television in the UK are reviewed to assess their accessibility implications for viewer/users with low vision. Of particular significance is the likelihood of divergence between sectors of the population receiving digital television in an enhanced form through new broadband distribution (thin client) technology and those remaining with older broadcast set-top-box (thick client) technology, comprising proportionately more visually disabled viewers. With this second segment particularly in mind, and utilising findings from our previous research with visually disabled people, we examine the applicability of the W3C web accessibility guidelines to interactive television. We conclude that, while technical limitations may prevent their wholesale adoption, guidelines relating to the display of interactive features, and brightness and contrast may be directly interpreted for this medium, whilst other guidelines involving magnification and audio equivalence and feedback are highly relevant and should inform technical developments in set-top box functionality.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Chorianopoulos, K., Lekakos, G., Spinellis, D.: The virtual channel model for personalized television. In: Proc. the 1st European interactive television conference (2003)
Cringeon, S., Benyon, D., Leplatre, G.: Exploration of personality rich mobile comanions. In: Proc. of Human-Animated Character Interaction Workshop (2005), http://www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/cogsys/workshop/StewartCringean_H-ACI2005.pdf
Freeman, J., et al.: Easy TV 2002 Research Report. ITC and Consumer’s Association (2003), available online http://www.which.net/campaigns/other/communications/0301easytv.pdf
Gill, J., Perera, S.: Accessible universal design of interactive digital television. In: Proceedings of 1st EuroITV Conference.
Hamilton, F., Petrie, H., Carmichael, A.: The VISTA Project: universal access to electronic programme guides for digital TV. In: Stephanidis, C. (ed.) Proceedings of HCI International, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2003)
Islington Borough Council UK, Implementing electronic government: return (2004), http://www.islington.gov.uk/DownloadableDocuments/CouncilandDemocracy/Pdf/ieg4_2004.pdf
Klein, J., Simon, K., Sinclair, K.: Attitudes to Digital Television. Preliminary findings on consumer adoption of Digital Television. (2004), http://www.genericsgroup.com
Nielsen, J., Molich, R.: Improving a Human-Computer Dialogue. Communications of the ACM (March 1990)
Office of national statistics (UK) (2006), http://www.statistics.gov.uk
Reason, J.: Human Error. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1990)
Rice, M., Fels, D.: Low vision the visual interface for interactive television. In: Masthoff, J., Griffiths, R., Pemberton, L. (eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd European Conference on Interactive television (2004)
Rice, M.: A study of television and visual impairment: Prospects for the accessibility of interactive television. In: Masthoff, J., Griffiths, R., Pemberton, L. (eds.) Proceedings of the 1st European interactive television conference (2003)
Cereijo Roibas, A., et al.: Beyond the remote control: Going the extra mile to enhance iTV access via mobile devices & humanizing navigation experience for those with special needs. In: Jensen, J. (ed.) User-Centred ITV Systems, Programmes and Applications: Proceedings of EuroITV 2005, Aalborg University, 30 March – 1 April (2005)
Springett, M., Griffiths, R.: The use of stalking-horse evaluation prototypes for probing DTV accessibility requirements. To appear in, Interactive Digital Television: technologies and applications, IGI press (in press)
Tanton, N.E., Ware, T., Armstrong, M.: Audio Description: what it is and how it works (2006), http://www.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/whp/whp051.shtml
16Tiresias.org, http://www.tiresias.org/
W3C Web content accessibility guidelines 1.0 (1999), http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Springett, M.V., Griffiths, R.N. (2007). Accessibility of Interactive Television for Users with Low Vision: Learning from the Web. In: Cesar, P., Chorianopoulos, K., Jensen, J.F. (eds) Interactive TV: a Shared Experience. EuroITV 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4471. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72559-6_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-72559-6_9
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-72558-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-72559-6
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)