Interactive Tactile Representations to Support Document Accessibility for People with Visual Impairments
INTERACTIVE TACTILE REPRESENTATIONS TO SUPPORT DOCUMENT ACCESSIBILITY FOR PEOPLE WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS Von der Fakultät für Informatik, Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik der Universität Stuttgart zur Erlangung der Würde eines Doktors der Naturwissenschaften (Dr. rer. nat.) genehmigte Abhandlung vorgelegt von MAURO ANTONIO ÁVILA SOTO aus Panama-Stadt Hauptberichter: Prof. Dr. Albrecht Schmidt Mitberichter: Prof. Dr. Tiago Guerreiro Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 28. September 2020 Institut für Visualisierung und Interaktive Systeme der Universität Stuttgart 2020 to Valentina iv Abstract v ABSTRACT Since the early beginnings of writing, humans have exploited text layout and format as primary means to facilitate reading access to a document. In con- trast, it is the norm for visually impaired people to be provided with little to no information about the spatial layout of documents. Braille text, sonification, and Text-To-Speech (TTS) can provide access to digital documents, albeit in a linearized form. This means that structural information, namely a bird’s-eye view, is mostly absent. For linear reading, this is a minor inconvenience that users can work around. However, spatial structures can be expected to strongly contribute to activities besides linear reading, such as document skimming, revising for a test, memorizing, understanding concepts, and comparing texts. This lack of layout cues and structural information can provoke distinct types of reading hindrances. A reader with visual impairment may start reading multiple sidebar paragraphs before starting to read the main text without noticing, which is not optimal for reading a textbook. If readers want to revise a paragraph or access a certain element of the document, they must to go through each element on the page before reaching the targeted paragraph, due screen readers iterate through each paragraph linearly.
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