Accessibility summarization & simplification in a template-based web transcoder

  • Authors:

  • Bambang Parmanto;Andi Saptono;Reza Ferrydiansyah;Lijing Song;I Wayan Sugiantara;Stephanie Hackett

  • Affiliations:

  • University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania;University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  • Venue:
  • Journal of Web Engineering
  • Year:
  • 2006

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Abstract

The goal of this project is to make the Web more accessible by providing some of the features naturally available to sighted users to users with visual impairments. These features are direct access and gestalt understanding, which can emerge from simplification and summarization. Simplification is achieved by retaining sections of the webpage that are considered important while removing the clutter. The purpose of summarization is to provide the users with a preview of the webpage. Simplification and summarization are implemented as a "guide dog" that helps users navigate the entire website. Simplifying the Web and summarizing the contents require understanding the structure underlying the entire webpage document. By understanding the structure, we can decide which sections of the webpage are important and therefore to keep, and which ones are clutter and need to be skipped. The bulk of our work has been in understanding the structure of a random document with the goal of transforming its contents into a format that is more accessible to users with disabilities as well as users of mobile devices. Understanding the structure of a random webpage is a difficult problem. We propose a novel method using a combination of pagelet feature recognition and genre-based templates.