Papers for

web accessibility engineers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Coral helps blind users quickly understand changing websites

Coral: Contextual Gists for Blind and Low Vision Screen Reader Users' Understanding of Dynamic User Interfaces

Abstract: Blind and low vision (BLV) screen reader users construct mental models of user interfaces (UIs) through incremental screen reader interaction, a time-consuming and cognitively demanding process complicated by modern interfaces that may not convey dynamic content accessibly. We interviewed eleven BLV screen reader users about UI understanding and derived design objectives that informed Coral, a context-aware browser extension. Coral synthesizes interface and user context to generate screen reader-narrated gists which holistically notify users of interface states and changes relevant to their likely goals and ongoing interaction. In a comparative evaluation with eight BLV screen reader users, participants used Coral to form initial expectations and interpret interface changes, and reported spending less time and effort manually verifying interaction outcomes. Together, our findings provide deeper insight into how BLV screen reader users navigate gaps in their UI understanding, and how intelligent support that combines interface and user context can bridge these gaps.

Sat 19 SeptHuman-Computer Interaction
The gist
People who are blind or have low vision use screen readers to navigate websites, but modern sites change dynamically and can be hard to understand this way. The authors designed Coral, a tool that listens to what’s on the page and what the user is doing, then summarizes important updates in a way the screen reader can speak out loud. In tests, Coral helped users learn about the page faster and with less effort. This work sheds light on how smart tools can make web browsing more accessible for people with vision impairments.
Open → 2609.22799v1