A Semantic-web based framework for developing applications to improve accessibility in the WWW

Abstract

One of the biggest issues the World Wide Web (WWW) community has to overcome is accessibility for all. The rapid expansion of the WWW using problematic web authoring practices, together with the dominance of the desktop metaphor in web page design has raised many WWW accessibility problems for people with disabilities. In this paper we present a what may be termed as a "Semantic Web application framework" which allows different applications to be designed and developed for improving accessibility of the WWW. Apart from the architecture, the tools and the technologies that compose the framework, the key idea of the framework is that it aims at promoting the idea of creating a community of people federating into groups each playing a specific role: ontology creators creating concepts using an ontological approach to describe various elements of the WWW, annotators using concepts to annotate specific pages, user-agent developers creating tools based on the framework, and finally end-users (people with disabilities) that use these tools for their benefit. Within the proposed framework, these groups cooperate and interact with each other, having as their ultimate goal the improvement of WWW accessibility.

Voice Browsing Approach to E-Business Access: A Blind’s Perspective

“…However, navigation through these aids is not a trouble-free task for blind users. Relating to this, the structure of the web can be built with a semantic approach, interpreting the visual content (by scanning) into an appropriate, sequenced audio (Optical Character Recognition technology can be used to convert the image if the image represents some text, more accurately printed text) which will not only assist blind users to navigate properly but issues like time constraint, user annoyance and informal structure, will also be addressed as well Kouroupetroglou, Salampasis & Manitsaris (2006).…”

Conceptual Framework: How to Engineer Online Trust for Disabled Users

“…Some previous studies proposed a conceptual framework for designing and developing Web applications to improve accessibility and usability for people with disabilities [12], [17], [2]. Kouroupetroglou et al proposed a semantic Web application framework to favor cooperation and interaction between groups (ontology creators, annotators, developers and users) that collaboratively should work to enhance WWW accessibility [12].…”

User Interface Personalization for the WWW Using Adaptive Browsing Shortcuts

“…Also the requirement to coordinate a complex process usually produces overhead to users and leads to poor navigation performance. In an effort to increase information seeking performance of blind people using the Web we have introduced and utilised an interaction modelling mechanism called Browsing Shortcuts (BS) [6].…”