Exploring WAI-Aria Techniques to Enhance Screen Reader Interaction: The Case of a Portal for Rating Accessibility of Cultural Heritage Sites
Pages 245 - 260
Abstract
Cultural heritage sites (museums, archaeological parks, exhibition spaces, etc.) do not always guarantee accessibility to all users, regardless of their abilities. Often services are not really as usable and functional as expected. Currently there is no website offering accessibility information on heritage sites in a format accessible to all. People with disability or their caregivers are forced to spend considerable time and effort to obtain accessibility information, sometimes encountering difficulties. The Axem portal aims to fill this gap by offering information on the degree of accessibility of cultural sites (museums, archaeological parks, libraries, art galleries, places of worship, exhibition spaces, etc.). It has been designed as a facility for people with disabilities and in general for all individuals who have special needs and require specific services. In this paper the Axem web site is presented as a case study to (1) investigate the use of web techniques for enhancing screen reading interaction, and (2) propose a portal to collect information on accessible services supported by the cultural sites. Regarding web accessibility, the use of WAI ARIA, an accessible web design, is discussed in order to improve screen reading interaction. Accessibility functions and features as well as the ranking algorithm for easy search and the rating mechanism are presented. This work offers a further contribution to the web accessibility field, while proposing a portal which could be exploited by cultural heritage sites and promote their accessible services to people with disability.
References
[1]
WHO 2019: World Health Organization. Report on disability. https://www.who.int/disabilities/world_report/2011/report/en/. Accessed 10 Oct 2019
[2]
D’Agnano F, Balletti C, Guerra F, and Vernier P Tooteko: a case study of augmented reality for an accessible cultural heritage. Digitization, 3D printing and sensors for an audio-tactile experience Int. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inf. Sci. 2015 40 5 207
[3]
Karimi R, Nanopoulos A, and Schmidt-Thieme L Grana C and Cucchiara R RFID-enhanced museum for interactive experience Multimedia for Cultural Heritage 2012 Heidelberg Springer 192-205
[4]
Ghiani, G., Leporini, B., Paterno, F.: Supporting orientation for blind people using museum guides. In: CHI 2008 Extended Abstracts (2008)
[5]
Asakawa, S., et al.: An independent and interactive museum experience for blind people. In: Proceedings of the 16th Web For All 2019 Personalization-Personalizing the Web, p. 30. ACM (May 2019)
[6]
Rossetti V, Furfari F, Leporini B, Pelagatti S, and Quarta A Enabling Access to cultural heritage for the visually impaired: an interactive 3D model of a cultural site Procedia Comput. Sci. 2018 130 383-391
[7]
Dindler, C., Iversen, O.S., Smith, R., Veerasawmy, R.: Participatory design at the museum: inquiring into children’s everyday engagement in cultural heritage. In: Proceedings of the 22nd Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction Special Interest Group of Australia (OZCHI 2010), pp. 72–79. ACM, New York (2010)
[8]
Buzzi, M.C., Buzzi, M., Leporini, B., Marchesini, G.: Improving user experience in the museum. In: Proceedings of the IADIS—Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction, pp. 327–331 (2013)
[9]
Buzzi MC, Buzzi M, Leporini B, Mori G, and Penichet VMR Miesenberger K, Klaus J, Zagler W, and Karshmer A Accessing Google docs via screen reader Computers Helping People with Special Needs 2010 Heidelberg Springer 92-99
[10]
Buzzi M and Leporini B Editing Wikipedia content by screen reader: easier interaction with the Accessible Rich Internet Applications suite Disabil. Rehabil.: Assist. Technol. 2009 4 4 264-275
[11]
Chiang, H.H., Tsaih, R.H., Han, T.S.: Measurement development of service quality for museum websites displaying artifacts. In: Managing Innovation and Cultural Management in the Digital Era, pp. 100–127. Routledge (2016)
[12]
Falk JH and Dierking LD Learning from Museums 2018 Lanham Rowman & Littlefield
[13]
Bohnert F and Zukerman I Houben G-J, McCalla G, Pianesi F, and Zancanaro M Non-intrusive personalisation of the museum experience User Modeling, Adaptation, and Personalization 2009 Heidelberg Springer 197-209
[14]
Partarakis N, Klironomos I, Antona M, Margetis G, Grammenos D, and Stephanidis C Antona M and Stephanidis C Accessibility of cultural heritage exhibits Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Interaction Techniques and Environments 2016 Cham Springer 444-455
[15]
Kabassi K Evaluating websites of museums: state of the art J. Cult. Herit. 2017 24 184-196
[16]
Fotakis T and Economides AA Art, science/technology and history museums on the web Int. J. Digit. Cult. Electron. Tour. 2008 1 1 37-63
[17]
Alletto S et al. An indoor location-aware system for an IoT-based smart museum IEEE Internet Things J. 2015 3 2 244-253
[18]
Carrozzino M and Bergamasco M Beyond virtual museums: experiencing immersive virtual reality in real museums J. Cult. Herit. 2010 11 4 452-458
[19]
Anagnostakis, G., et al.: Accessible museum collections for the visually impaired: combining tactile exploration, audio descriptions and mobile gestures. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct, pp. 1021–1025. ACM (September 2016)
[20]
W3C: WCAG 2.1 1.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/
[21]
W3C: WAI-ARIA 1.1. https://www.w3.org/TR/graphics-aria-1.0/#bib-wai-aria-1.1
[22]
Leporini B and Paternò F Applying web usability criteria for vision-impaired users: does it really improve task performance? Int. J. Hum.-Comput. Interact. 2008 24 1 17-47
Recommendations
Dynamic injection of WAI-ARIA into web content
W4A '13: Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web AccessibilityWAI-ARIA enables Web developers to make dynamic content accessible to users of assistive technologies (ATs) but there remain many sites on the Web that do not use it. Unfortunately the default behaviour of ATs when handling such pages is often sub-...
WAI-ARIA live regions: eBuddy IM as a case example
W4A '10: Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) offer new levels of user interactivity through a Web browser. By combining semantics, style and behavior it is possible to create a RIA that can rival a traditional desktop application. Unfortunately, much of the ...
Developing an accessible interaction model for touch screen mobile devices: preliminary results
IHC+CLIHC '11: Proceedings of the 10th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems and the 5th Latin American Conference on Human-Computer InteractionMobile devices are becoming the mass IT platform of the future, reaching people that have never accessed the digital world. Aiming at digitally including visually impaired people also, it is necessary to address solutions that overcome natural barriers ...
Comments
Please enable JavaScript to view thecomments powered by Disqus.Information & Contributors
Information
Published In
Jul 2020
533 pages
ISBN:978-3-030-49281-6
DOI:10.1007/978-3-030-49282-3
- Editors:
- Margherita Antona,
- Constantine Stephanidis
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020.
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Berlin, Heidelberg
Publication History
Published: 19 July 2020
Author Tags
Qualifiers
- Article
Contributors
Other Metrics
Bibliometrics & Citations
Bibliometrics
Article Metrics
- 0Total Citations
- 0Total Downloads
- Downloads (Last 12 months)0
- Downloads (Last 6 weeks)0
Reflects downloads up to 18 Jan 2025