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Web-based Multimodal Graphs for Visually Impaired People

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Book cover Universal Access and Assistive Technology

Abstract

This chapter describes the development and evaluation of Web-based multimodal graphs designed for visually impaired and blind people. The information in the graphs is conveyed to visually impaired people through haptic and audio channels. The motivation of this work is to address problems faced by visually impaired people in accessing graphical information on the Internet, particularly the common types of graphs for data visualisation. In our work, line graphs, bar charts and pie charts are accessible through a force feedback device, the Logitech WingMan Force Feedback Mouse. Pre-recorded sound files are used to represent graph contents to users. In order to test the usability of the developed Web graphs, an evaluation was conducted with bar charts as the experimental platform. The results showed that the participants could successfully use the haptic and audio features to extract information from the Web graphs.

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© 2002 Springer-Verlag London

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Yu, W., Reid, D., Brewster, S. (2002). Web-based Multimodal Graphs for Visually Impaired People. In: Keates, S., Langdon, P., Clarkson, P.J., Robinson, P. (eds) Universal Access and Assistive Technology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3719-1_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3719-1_10

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-3721-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3719-1

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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