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Interpreting the layout of web pages

Published: 29 June 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Web pages such as news and shopping sites often use modular layouts. When used effectively this practice allows authors to present clearly large amounts of information in a single page. However, while sighted people can visually parse and understand these complex layouts in seconds, current assistive technologies such as screen readers cannot. This puts visually impaired users at a great disadvantage. In order to design better assistive technologies, we conducted a study of how people interpret modular layouts of news and shopping Web pages. The study revealed that when the layout complexity increases, the interpretation process gets longer and the reading gets more varied. Also, before looking at the main content, users first frame the Web page by looking for familiar structural elements that can be used as references and entry points. These elements include navigational bars, search boxes, and ads. This implies that assistive technologies can reduce the time required to frame the pages if they help users identify reference points and entry points.

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cover image ACM Conferences
HT '09: Proceedings of the 20th ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia
June 2009
410 pages
ISBN:9781605584867
DOI:10.1145/1557914
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 29 June 2009

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Author Tags

  1. adaptive hypermedia
  2. assistive technology
  3. modular layouts
  4. sighted users
  5. spatial hypermedia
  6. visually impaired users

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Cited By

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  • (2018)Detecting Emotional Changes among Visually Impaired Users in Complex and Non-Complex Layout using Neuro-Physiological SignalProceedings of the 2018 7th International Conference on Software and Computer Applications10.1145/3185089.3185119(302-305)Online publication date: 8-Feb-2018
  • (2017)Analysis of Visually Impaired Users’ Navigation Techniques in Complex and Non-complex Layout by Using SpectrumAdvances in Visual Informatics10.1007/978-3-319-70010-6_4(43-49)Online publication date: 29-Oct-2017
  • (2013)Engagement-based user attention distribution on web article pagesProceedings of the 24th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media10.1145/2481492.2481516(196-201)Online publication date: 1-May-2013
  • (2013)WebSightProceedings of the 7th international conference on Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction: user and context diversity - Volume 210.1007/978-3-642-39191-0_72(674-683)Online publication date: 21-Jul-2013
  • (2012)Collaborative Design Rationale and Social Creativity in Cultures of ParticipationCreativity and Rationale10.1007/978-1-4471-4111-2_20(423-447)Online publication date: 29-May-2012
  • (2011)Modelling User Behaviour on Page Content and Layout in Recommender SystemsLearning Structure and Schemas from Documents10.1007/978-3-642-22913-8_14(289-313)Online publication date: 2011
  • (2010)Interpretation of web page layouts by blind usersProceedings of the 10th annual joint conference on Digital libraries10.1145/1816123.1816148(173-176)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2010
  • (2010)Empirical quantification of opportunities for content adaptation in web serversProceedings of the 3rd Annual Haifa Experimental Systems Conference10.1145/1815695.1815702(1-11)Online publication date: 24-May-2010
  • (2010)Framework for new generation web form and form filling for blind user2010 International Conference on Computer Applications and Industrial Electronics10.1109/ICCAIE.2010.5735089(276-281)Online publication date: Dec-2010

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