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More than meets the eye: a survey of screen-reader browsing strategies

Published: 26 April 2010 Publication History

Abstract

Browsing the Web with screen readers can be difficult and frustrating. Web pages often contain inaccessible content that is expressed only visually or that can be accessed only with the mouse. Screen-reader users must also contend with usability challenges encountered when the reading content is designed with built-in assumptions of how it will be accessed -- generally by a sighted person on a standard display. Far from passive consumers of content who simply accept web content as accessible or not, many screen-reader users are adept at developing, discovering, and employing browsing strategies that help them overcome the accessibility and usability problems they encounter. In this paper, we overview the browsing strategies that we have observed screen-reader users employ when faced with challenges, ranging from unfamiliar web sites and complex web pages to dynamic and automatically-refreshing content. A better understanding of existing browsing strategies can inform the design of accessible websites, development of new tools that make experienced users more effective, and help overcome the initial learning curve for users who have not yet acquired effective browsing strategies.

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cover image ACM Other conferences
W4A '10: Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)
April 2010
223 pages
ISBN:9781450300452
DOI:10.1145/1805986
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: 26 April 2010

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Author Tags

  1. accessibility
  2. blind
  3. browsing strategy
  4. screen reader
  5. usability

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W4A '10 Paper Acceptance Rate 10 of 32 submissions, 31%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 171 of 371 submissions, 46%

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  • (2025)SERB: an interactive exploration mechanism for blind web users to explore web search contentUniversal Access in the Information Society10.1007/s10209-025-01199-2Online publication date: 17-Feb-2025
  • (2024)The Field of Usability and User Experience (UX) DesignNavigating Usability and User Experience in a Multi-Platform World10.4018/979-8-3693-2337-3.ch005(117-154)Online publication date: 15-Nov-2024
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