Paolo GRAZIANI, Laura BURZAGLI, E PALCHETTI CNR (Italy)
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to discuss different aspects of accessibility to a WWW site by blind persons.
The problem of accessibility of HTML documents via Internet for blind people has been taken into consideration by several organizations and researchers.
In the framework of the National Project on Telemedicine, supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technological Research (MURST), these problems have been faced at IROE (Inst. of Research on Electromagnetic Waves of the National Research Council) with the purpose of the development of a daily newspaper fully available for blind readers with an effective way to navigate and select what they really wish to read. This is a task of a more general project, devoted to the development of access systems for disabled people, coordinated by CSELT of Turin.
The organization of a newspaper for the blind was the occasion to design a WWW site devoted to the more general problem of accessibility to the information available in the Web by blind persons. In particular, we have considered three different aspects of the accessibility. Firstly, the application of guidelines concerning the correct use of HTML code; secondly, the effective navigation inside the hypertext; thirdly, the distribution of the newspaper in order to ensure that as many blind users as possible can benefit of this service.
Access facilities
The server has been designed as a environment fully accessible for blind persons (Bobby approved). Links available on its pages lead the user to other even fully accessible WWW sites, such as those of RAI Televideo and Giornale Radio (HTML version of the Teletext and RealAudio version of Radio News diffused by the Italian Broadcasting Corporation), the one of the Italian Blind Union with periodicals and the catalog of talking books on audio cassettes. In addition, other links ensure a quick access to sites which, even if they have not been designed taking into specific account the problems of blind people, result readable with no severe problems and can be of interest for this class of users.
Finally, other tools and information pages are devoted to improve possibilities of access to sites which usually present some problems because of their graphical contents. First of all we installed, on the same machine of the HTTPD server, the proxy server developed by the Institut fuer Informationssysteme, ETH Zurich and freely available in source version on their server. Moreover, the blind user finds information about other facilities available in the network, such as the proxy server of Adobe Acrobat Products which converts PDF into HTML pages.
The newspaper structure
The chosen daily newspaper is La Stampa of Turin, one of the most known ones in Italy. The publisher of this newspaper offered the necessary cooperation by making available the articles files, written in their proprietary code. An automatic procedure converts the compressed file of the newspaper in its original format, sent every night to IROE via e-mail by the editorial office of Turin, into its final version consisting of a structured set of HTML pages.
A double tree structure has been chosen to present the contents of our electronic newspaper according to two different criteria: a logical classification of titles according to subjects and a physical location organized into pages. The first key of access allows a quick exploration of lists of titles with a common subject, regardless of the position of these articles inside the printed version of the newspaper; on the other hand the second key of access brings the blind reader into the same condition of a sighted person dealing with the printed edition, where the reader browses the journal page by page, to descry their contents and the articles distribution and location. A third navigation modality is represented by a search engine which allows the user to find any word inside the whole hypertext.
Finally, buttons give access to three different reading modalities of articles. The main one is the integral reading, that is the sequential presentation of the complete text of the article. The second and third ones represent two different forms of quick reading consisting of pages generated "on the fly" with a reduced presentation of the text: only the first portion of each paragraph or each sentence, respectively. This features offer to the blind reader firstly an effective oversee of the contents and then a quick browsing of the chosen text, if the user is not interested in a complete and detailed reading.
Distribution of the newspaper
The last accessibility level concerns the possibility of the user to get the electronic version of the newspaper. The physical link between the www server and the user's computer can be another access barrier, because of the cost of the connection. We have made available a variety of newspaper formats: an on line version, at the address sunmurst.iroe.fi.cnr.it, a zipped version of the set of html files, to be downloaded via ftp, a mailing list service to allow the user to receive the newspaper in his/her own mail box. A textual format of the newspaper is also available.
Conclusion
The given description of the electronic newspaper and the other facilities offer an example of www site design which take into account all aspects of accessibility for blind users. We individuated three levels of possible barriers: firstly, the user interface, secondly the documents structure and thirdly, the connection cost to the server.
The design of a site involves all these requirements. A blind user needs HTML pages written according the well known guidelines as well as a structured document which makes navigation and retrieval of single pieces of information easy. Finally, due to the fact that the on line browsing can result slow for a blind person, down load facilities are necessary to allow as much as possible the off line browsing.
These concepts can be applied to any other environment different from the reading of a newspaper, such as tele-working, tele-education etc.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to the MURST (Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technological Research ) who have supported this project and to the Editrice La Stampa publisher who has kindly made available the daily newspaper to the project.
The aim of this paper is to discuss different aspects of accessibility to a WWW site by blind people.
Several organizations and researchers have studied the problems blind people encounter when accessing HTML documents via Internet.
In the framework of the National Project on Telemedicine, supported by the Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technological Research (MURST), these issues have been the focus of analysis at IROE (Inst. of Research on Electromagnetic Waves of the National Research Council) in attempting to create a daily newspaper that is fully available to blind readers, with effective navigation and selection of what they really wish to read. This task is being undertaken in a project devoted to the development of access systems for disabled people, coordinated by CSELT of Turin.
AThe creation of such a newspaper for blind people also brought about the design a WWW site devoted to the broader issue of blind people’s access to the information available on the Web. In particular, we have considered three different aspects of accessibility: (i) the application of guidelines concerning the correct use of HTML code, interpreted according to the real possibility of application; (ii) the effective navigation within the hypertext, taking into account the characteristics of the alternative displays; (iii) distribution of the newspaper to ensure that the greatest number possible of blind people can benefit from this service, at the lowest cost.
The problem surrounding blind people’s access to HTML documents and Web sites can be approached in several ways.
The first involves technologies and tools that ensure alternative presentation of multi-media information and man-machine interaction. These are usually special adaptations made at the terminal level, consisting of browsers coupled with a speech synthesizer and/or a Braille display. These can include a specially designed browser or a standard one, made accessible by a suitable screen reader for blind people. These adaptations are necessary but not sufficient to ensure access to any Web site. In addition, other special adaptations can be introduced as transparent filters which re-organize HTML documents in order to improve their accessibility to a blind user. This is the case with special proxy servers, such as those developed by the Institut fuer Informationssysteme, ETH Zurich (WAB: World Wide Web Access for Blind and Visually Impaired Computer Users, 1996 http://www.inf.ethz.ch/department/IS/ea/blinds/ ) or made available by Adobe Acrobat Products, devoted to the PDF-HTML conversion ( Helping people with visual disabilities access electronic information, 1997 http://www.adobe.com/prodindex/acrobat/access.html).
Secondly, the design of HTML documents needs to be carried out according the "design for all" criteria, by using special tags and attributes to avoid the creation of artificial barriers. Guidelines and recommendations are available for this type of universal design (Unified Web Site Accessibility Guidelines,
1998 http://trace.wisc.edu/docs/html_guidelines/htmlgide.htm). In particular, the activity of WAI group (Web Accessibility Initiatives) operating within the W3C consortium has been instrumental in that regard (WAI Accessibility Guidelines: Page Authoring W3C Working Draft, 1998 http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0203.html).
The latter is the most critical point, because it is crucial to the work of those who design HTML pages, even though there is no way to ensure the designers’ full cooperation. The famous proverb "You can bring the horse to water but you can’t make it drink!" is particularly appropriate in this case. Recommendations are often neglected and most authors are completely unaware of the literature available on this subject; the mere mention of accessibility problems often leaves them very surprised.
The activity of developing guidelines for accessibility has been increased in recent years, following the release of specifics of HTML 4.0 (W3C Recommendation 18-Dec-1997) in which a fundamental aspect is focused upon: the separation between structure of HTML documents and its presentation, by means of the introduction of the "style sheets". It may be useful to recall that HTML code, born to create textual documents, was losing its original characteristic of accessibility by means any navigation program, due to introduction of graphic components, pictures and animations, with proprietary tags. In fact, in many cases, Web sites require the use of specific browsers while presenting parts that result inaccessible for others. Statements appearing in certain HTML pages, such as "Document optimized for XYZ browser" are in direct contrast with the aim of any accessibility principle.
The proposed solution introduced by HTML 4.0 is based on "style sheets" which incorporate all codes concerning the presentation, while leaving the original meaning of document structure description and mark ups of its components to HTML tags. This approach is certainly the most correct and universal, also in terms of accessibility, but it presents some limitations regarding immediate and concrete applications due to the length of time required for the adoption of any new language or protocol by authoring and navigation programs. In addition, it is necessary to consider the already mentioned resistance of uncooperative authors. The dilemma of rapid product updating according to new guidelines is also highlighted in the WAI Accessibility Guidelines: Page Authoring (W3C Working Draft ,1998 http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WD-WAI-PAGEAUTH-0414.html) in which the property of HTML pages to be readable even without style sheets is classified with a "required" rating. This rating indicates that if the reading of an HTML page requires a browser that is able to deal with style sheets, at present it would result inaccessible to most users. The guidelines specify that style sheets are something new, and consequently old browsers are not able to interpret them. As a result, some time will pass before this becomes standard, especially when considering that products for blind people are often developed by small organizations that are unable to follow the fast evolution of the market like the big software houses.
A third aspect of accessibility problems concerns the effective navigation within an HTML document by blind people. The overview of a document is very difficult for a reader who is using a sequential display, such as a speech synthesizer or a small Braille display. Localization of titles, links, buttons, and other interactive components is tedious and time consuming. A table of contents, with anchors to the part of document corresponding to a certain title, can aid in quick comprehension of the document and allow to jump directly to a desired section. A similar separate list of links inside the document can be useful. In many cases, HTML documents present a set of buttons and tool bars at the beginning of each page; a certain amount of time is needed to skip over these objects with the reading pointer of the browser before reaching the significant part of the page. These examples show how the mere accessibility of each component is not sufficient to ensure true accessibility and comprehension of the document as a whole. An additional economic factor comes to play as well. The time it takes to find the necessary piece of information within a document affects the cost of the remote connection, which is in all cases time dependent, representing a further limitation of accessibility.
It is interesting to note that all the mentioned documents on accessibility have been released in the first months of 1998 or at the end of 1997. Our project started at beginning of 1996, so that we could not take into account the recommendations provided in these documents about new developments in the field. However, it can be observed that we were able to foresee some findings in those documents concerning the use of caution when dealing with the most innovative solutions. In fact, the main purpose of the project was to realize a service which was truly available and accessible to as many Italian blind users as possible and devoted to a well specified type of document: a daily newspaper and an electronic library. This is the reason for the different design criteria adopted for the site of this service.
The site is geared towards blind people, so we optimized the access and the navigation for this type of user, taking into account the tools utilized in Italy by blind persons when accessing electronic documents. Therefore, we started from the analysis of the real world of users of the service rather than of the most advanced incoming technical solutions. This pragmatic approach is not typical of the academic world, always pushed by the internal professional rules whereby priority is given to the objective or the "impact factor" of their publications, rather than the impact of a project on society. Fortunately, the authors of this paper are not affected by this problem, so that we may look at the real world, keeping in mind the difference between the design of a real service and a research activity.
Generally, blind people do not utilize browsers of the last generation, because of their poor accessibility. Monitoring of the specialized international mailing lists confirms this; in particular, most blind people in Italy do not use graphic browsers. The most utilized navigation programs are NetTamer and Lynx, while only in a small number of cases are NetScape Navigator or MS Internet Explorer 3.xx browsers adopted. None of these products is able to deal with the advanced release of HTML.
There is no need to include graphic components when creating a service geared towards blind users. Therefore, our objective was not to design an attractive site with alternative solutions for blind people but rather a site in which all effort was devoted to realizing an effective data structure, as well as innovative tools to optimize navigation and quick consultation of the pages, taking into account the nature of their contents.
The most important service component is the electronic daily newspaper, so we devoted special attention to the organization of this part of the server, drawing upon other similar experiences. The problem of an effective data structure for a daily newspaper for disabled persons was studied in the TIDE-CAPS activity (Communication and Access to information for Persons with Special needs,1991-1994 http://www.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/teo/Resproj/rp.htm), with the definition of an European Interchange Format, consisting of a SGML Document Type Description called CAPS-News DTD. We adopted this DTD as an intermediary format between the proprietary of the daily newspaper, delivered by the publisher, and the HTML specially designed by our project and briefly described below.
The server has been designed as a fully accessible environment for blind people (Bobby approved). The main services provided for blind users are the electronic daily newspaper (http://sunmurst.iroe.fi.cnr.it), already achieved, and the database of electronic documents, still under development.
In addition, the server also indicates other services of interest to blind people in an indirect way. Links available on its pages lead the user to other even fully accessible WWW sites, such as those of RAI Televideo and Giornale Radio (HTML version of the Teletext and RealAudio version of Radio News diffused by RAI, the Italian Broadcasting Corporation). Incidentally, it is interesting to note that, in the case of Televideo, many blind people have direct access to this service by means of a special decoder connected to their personal computer. This decoder can be tuned to a television channel in order to extract this component of signal and present it on the screen in ASCII format. The real time copy of Televideo available via Internet in HTML "Bobby approved" format represents a good alternative to people who are not provided with the mentioned decoder but who are Internet users.
Specific links available on our server lead to pages on the Italian Blind Union site, which contain periodicals and the catalog of talking books on audiocassettes published by this organization.
In addition, other links enable quick access to sites which, even though they have not been designed with the problems of blind people in mind, result readable with no severe problems and can be of interest for this class of users. One such example is the "Gazzetta Ufficiale", the official bulletin of the Italian Republic.
Finally, other tools and information pages are devoted to improving possibilities of access to sites which are usually problematic due to their graphical contents. First we installed, on the same machine of the HTTPD server, the proxy server developed by the Institut fuer Informationssysteme, ETH Zurich and freely available in source version on their server. Moreover, the blind user finds information about other facilities available on the network, such as the proxy server of Adobe Acrobat Products which converts PDF into HTML pages.
The general criterion behind these choices has been the concentration on a single server of the main facilities and the information related to accessing electronic periodicals available in Internet and, more in general, to Web pages.
The chosen daily newspaper is La Stampa of Turin, one of the most well known and widely circulated papers in Italy. The publisher of this newspaper offered their cooperation by making available the articles files, written in their proprietary code. An automatic procedure converts the compressed file of the newspaper in its original format, sent every night to IROE via e-mail by the editorial office of Turin, into its final version consisting of a structured set of HTML pages. This conversion in realized in two main steps: first, from the proprietary code of the publisher into CAPS-New DTD and, second, from this last format into HTML. The original format consists of as many files as the number of articles, each containing special mark up codes. All these files are combined in the single SGML file, according to the specifics of CAPS-News DTD format and, finally, starting from this file, the set of HTML PAGES is generated. The HTML version requires a multi-page structure due to limitations in the code regarding the construction of complex structured documents. However, the adopted solution allows to obtain an HTML version with the same level of detail level defined in the SGML intermediary format.
A double tree structure has been chosen to present the contents of our electronic newspaper according to two different criteria: a logical classification of titles according to subjects and a physical location organized into pages. The first key of access allows a quick exploration of lists of titles with a common subject, regardless of the position of these articles inside the printed version of the newspaper. The second key of access brings the blind reader into the same condition of a sighted person dealing with the printed edition, whereby the reader browses the paper page by page, to descry their contents and the articles distribution and location.
It can be observed that, in addition to the completely accessible format of these pages, this double tree structure ensures a more effective presentation than that generally available by other on line daily newspapers. In fact, in the best of cases, newspapers available on Internet are presented in just one of these forms and conceived for visual oriented layout.
A third navigation modality is represented by a search engine, installed on the server, which allows the user to find any word, or combination of words connected by means of logical operators, within the entire hypertext. This is necessary because of the HTML multi-page structure; this way the reader has the possibility of searching throughout the whole newspaper, in addition to the searching facilities provided by browsers, which is limited to the current HTML page.
The different title lists only contain the key words of each title in order to enable a quick and effective search. When the user selects one of these short titles, s/he has access to a second level of detail concerning that article. This is achieved through a single page in which all the other parts of title, that is head line and sub-title, are presented, with the name of the author, the length of the article, the page and the position within the page. Finally, buttons give access to three different reading modalities of articles. The main mode is integral reading, that is the sequential presentation of the complete text of the article. The second and third modes represent two different forms of quick reading consisting of pages generated "on the fly" with a reduced presentation of the text: only the first portion of each paragraph or each sentence, respectively. These features offer the blind reader with an overall view of the contents as well as a quick browsing of the chosen text, should the user not be interested in a complete and detailed reading. These special reading tools are conceived to free the blind user from the constraints of sequential presentation of the alternative display, so that they contribute to enlarging and generalizing the concept of accessibility.
The last accessibility level concerns the opportunity to get an electronic version of the newspaper. The physical link between the www server and the user's computer can be another access barrier, due to connection costs. We have made available a variety of newspaper formats: an on line version, at the address http://sunmurst.iroe.fi.cnr.it/stampa/la stampa.htm , a zipped version of the set of html files, to be downloaded via ftp, and a mailing list service to allow the user to receive the newspaper in his/her own mail box (majordomo@sunmurst.iroe.fi.cnr.it). These compressed versions allow the user to install the newspaper on his or her terminal and read it off line. This can also be done on a portable machine, with an additional benefit of freedom.
A textual format of the newspaper is also available, organized in an hypertextual structure, according to the format of a well known reading program (Doc) developed by Prof. Giuliano Artico of Padua University. Using this special format, it is possible to create a tree structure equivalent to that of the on line HTML version of the newspaper, with the advantage of a more familiar reading modality for many blind users.
The given description of the electronic newspaper and the other facilities offer an example of WWW site design which takes into account all aspects of accessibility for blind users. We identified three levels of possible barriers: the user interface, the document structure, and the connection cost to the server.
The design of a site involves all these requirements. A blind user needs HTML pages written according to well-known guidelines as well as a structured document which makes navigation and retrieval of single pieces of information easy. Finally, due to the fact that the on line browsing can be slow for a blind person, down loading facilities are necessary to allow as much off line browsing as possible.
These concepts can be applied to many other environments besides the reading of a newspaper, such as tele-working, tele-education etc.
The authors wish to thank both the MURST (Italian Ministry of University and Scientific and Technological Research ) for its support of this project as well as the Editrice La Stampa publisher who has kindly made available the daily newspaper to the project.
Paolo GRAZIANI, Laura BURZAGLI, E PALCHETTI CNR (Italy)
Introduction
Cet article se propose de traiter des différents aspects de l'accessibilité aux non-voyants d'un site web.
Le problème de l'accessibilité aux non-voyants des documents HTML au moyen d'Internet a été examiné par plusieurs organismes et chercheurs.
Dans le cadre du Projet National sur la Télémédecine, avec le soutien du Ministère italien de l'Université et de la Recherche Scientifique et Technologique (MURST), l'IROE (Institut de Recherche sur les Ondes Electromagnétiques du Conseil National de la Recherche) s'est attaqué à ces problèmes dans le but de développer un quotidien totalement accessible aux non-voyants et leur permettant de naviguer efficacement et de sélectionner ce qu'ils souhaitent réellement lire. Cette tâche fait partie d'un projet plus général consacré au développement de systèmes d'accès pour les personnes handicapées, coordonné par le CSELT de Turin.
L'organisation d'un journal pour les aveugles a été l'occasion d'élaborer un site web consacré au problème plus général de l'accessibilité aux non-voyants des informations présentes sur le web. Nous avons en particulier examiné trois aspects différents de l'accessibilité. D'abord, l'application de directives quant à l'utilisation correcte du code HTML ; ensuite, une navigation efficace au sein de l'hypertexte ; enfin, la distribution du journal, afin que le plus grand nombre possible d'utilisateurs non-voyants puissent bénéficier de ce service.
Les facilités d'accès
Le serveur a été élaboré sous la forme d'un environnement totalement accessible aux non-voyants (approuvé par Bobby). Les liens présents sur ses pages conduisent l'utilisateur à d'autres sites web également totalement accessibles, comme ceux de RAI Televideo et du Giornale Radio (la version HTML de la version en Télétexte et RealAudio des informations radiophoniques diffusées par la compagnie italienne de radiodiffusion), ou celui de l'Union italienne des Aveugles avec des périodiques et le catalogue des livres parlants sur cassettes audio. En outre, d'autres liens permettent un accès rapide à des sites qui, sans avoir été conçus en prenant en considération les besoins des non-voyants, s'avèrent lisibles sans présenter de problème important et peuvent intéresser cette catégorie d'utilisateurs.
Enfin, d'autres outils et d'autres pages d'informations sont consacrés à l'amélioration des possibilités d'accès aux sites qui posent habituellement des problèmes en raison de leur contenu graphique. Nous avons tout d'abord installé sur la même machine que le serveur HTTPD, le proxy (serveur de substitution) mis au point par l'Institut fuer Informationssysteme, ETH Zurich, qui est en accès direct dans sa version source sur leur serveur. En outre, l'utilisateur non-voyant trouvera des informations sur les autres facilités qu'il peut trouver sur le réseau, comme le proxy d'Adobe Acrobat Products qui convertit les fichiers PDF en pages HTML.
La structure du journal
Le quotidien choisi est La Stampa de Turin, un des plus célèbres journaux italiens. L'éditeur de ce journal a coopéré en nous fournissant les fichiers des articles, écrits dans leur code propriétaire. Une procédure automatique convertit le fichier compressé du journal dans son format d'origine, envoyé toutes les nuits par e-mail à l'IROE par le bureau éditorial de Turin, en sa version finale sous la forme d'un ensemble structuré de pages HTML.
Une double structure hiérarchique a été choisie pour présenter le contenu de notre journal électronique en fonction de deux critères : une classification logique des titres selon leurs sujets et une localisation physique organisée en pages. La première clé d'accès permet une exploration rapide des listes de titres sur un même sujet, indépendamment de la position de ces articles dans la version imprimée du journal, tandis que la seconde clé d'accès met le lecteur non-voyant dans la même position qu'une personne voyante devant la version imprimée : le lecteur consulte le journal page par page, pour avoir un aperçu de son contenu et de la distribution et de la localisation des articles. Une troisième modalité de navigation est constituée par un dispositif de recherche qui permet à l'utilisateur de trouver n'importe quel mot dans l'ensemble de l'hypertexte.
Enfin, des boutons donnent accès à trois modalités différentes de lecture des articles. La principale est la lecture intégrale, c'est-à-dire la présentation séquentielle du texte complet de l'article. La seconde et la troisième constituent deux formes différentes de lecture rapide, à savoir des pages créées "en manchette" avec une présentation réduite du texte : respectivement la première partie seulement de chaque paragraphe ou de chaque phrase. Ces options offrent à l'utilisateur non-voyant d'abord une vision globale efficace du contenu, puis une consultation rapide du texte choisi, si le lecteur n'est pas intéressé par une lecture complète et détaillée.
La distribution du journal
Le dernier niveau d'accessibilité concerne la possibilité pour l'utilisateur d'obtenir la version électronique du journal. Le lien physique entre le serveur WWW et l'ordinateur de l'utilisateur peut représenter un autre obstacle à l'accès, en raison du coût de la connexion. Nous avons fourni une variété de formats du journal : une version en ligne, à l'adresse sunmurst.iroe.fi.cnr.it, une version compressée de l'ensemble de fichiers html pouvant être téléchargée par ftp, un service de liste de distribution permettant à l'utilisateur de recevoir le journal dans sa boîte aux lettres personnelle. Une version du journal en format texte existe également.