Accessible Rich Internet Applications Research Articles

AI-Powered Real-time Accessibility Enhancement: A Solution for Web Content Accessibility Issues

The web accessibility landscape is a significant challenge, with 96.3% of home pages displaying issues with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). This paper addresses the primary accessibility issues, such as missing Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) landmarks, ill-formed headings, low contrast text, and inadequate form labeling. The dynamic nature of modern web and cloud applications presents challenges, such as developers' limited awareness of accessibility implications, potential code bugs, and API failures. To address these issues, an AI-enabled system is proposed to dynamically enhance web accessibility. The system uses machine learning algorithms to identify and rectify accessibility issues in real-time, integrating with existing development workflows. Empirical evaluation and case studies demonstrate the efficacy of this solution in improving web accessibility across diverse scenarios.

An Approach to Validating theAccessibility of Dynamic Web Pages

The purpose of the publication is to present a web page validation approach that is part of a method for designing accessible web content. The validation approach is built on standards, principles, guidelines, success criteria and techniques for web content validation. The main standards to which the approach adheres are Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and Technical Specifications for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. The publication discusses the understanding of dynamic web content, dynamic web content design and implementation method and web content validation approach.

Method for Designing Accessible Web Content in The Web Space of “Paisii Hilenarski” Plovdiv University

The article addresses the problem of accessibility of dynamic web content that is created when developing web pages and services. It discusses basic issues about the accessibility of digital objects and web page content. The aim of the article is to present a method for designing accessibility in the creation of dynamic web content in websites of Paisii Hilendarski Plovdiv University. The developed method is presented through the life cycle of its model, which is applied in parallel with the implementation of a software process in the renewal of the web infrastructure of the university. The method is built on standards, principles, guidelines, accessibility criteria, and techniques for creating and validating web content of the Web Accessibility Initiative. The main standards to which the method adheres are the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the Technical Specifications for Accessible Rich Internet Applications. It has been tested in the design and implementation of part of the web content of the web infrastructure of the university created after 2020, which is accessible through the main domain https://uni-plovdiv.bg and many of its sub-domains.

Drop-Down Menu Widget Identification Using HTML Structure Changes Classification

Widgets have been deployed in rich internet applications for more than 10 years. However, many of the widgets currently available on the web do not implement current accessibility design solutions standardized in ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) specification, hence are not accessible to disabled users. This article sets out an approach for automatically identifying widgets on the basis of machine-learning algorithms and the classification of mutation records; it is an HTML5 technology that logs all changes that occur in the structure of a web application. Automatic widget identification is an essential component for the elaboration of automatic ARIA evaluation and adaptation strategies. Thus, the aim of this article is to take steps toward easing the software-engineering process of ARIA widgets. The proposed approach focuses on the identification of drop-down menu widgets. An experiment with real-world web applications was conducted and the results showed evidence that this approach is capable of identifying these widgets and can outperform previous state-of-the-art techniques based on an F-measure analysis conducted during the experiment.

Acceptance tests for validating ARIA requirements in widgets

Accessibility refers to a quality requirement for web applications. However, current accessibility automatic evaluation tools cannot evaluate dynamic generated content that characterizes Ajax applications and RIAs. In this context, this paper describes an approach for evaluating Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) requirements, by using acceptance tests. The authors implemented a set of disabled user interaction scenarios as acceptance tests in order to verify keyboard accessibility in RIA and automatically evaluate ARIA conformance in widgets. The inclusion of disabled user interaction scenarios in the evaluation process is necessary to analyse ARIA requirements since dynamic changes are accommodated in the DOM structure. Two evaluation tool prototypes were developed and validated in separate case studies. The results show evidence that the proposed evaluation approach is capable of evaluating ARIA conformance in RIA widgets.

A universal design resource for rich Internet applications based on design patterns

Rich Internet applications have removed most of the constraints of Web 1.0 while giving users more responsiveness and advanced browsing and interaction experiences. These new horizons, however, raise many challenges for people with disabilities or using limited hardware and software technologies, whose risk to be excluded from the benefits deriving from advanced web applications. To address this problem, WCAG 2.0 guidelines have been released as the newest World Wide Web Consortium recommendation for accessible web content, and WAI-ARIA is a candidate recommendation which provides reference specifications for accessible rich Internet applications. However, both specifications contain a huge amount of information that often discourages most web designers from dealing with accessibility issues. Moreover, guidelines are suitable and usually adopted to judge a design solution a posteriori, but they do not suggest how to face a design problem constructively. This paper proposes a design pattern language for accessibility. The language can be regarded as a universal design resource for helping web designers create accessible rich Internet applications compliant with the most recent standards. Knowledge representation through design patterns reflects the problem-solving approach usually followed by software and web designers, while pattern organization in a structured language aims to guide web designers throughout the design process. The language has been implemented as an accessible rich Internet application itself, thus allowing designers with disabilities to participate in web design. In order to evaluate the design pattern language, a three-step process was carried out including: (1) a heuristic analysis with a group of human---computer interaction experts, (2) a survey study with a group of web designers, and (3) a validation on the field with two designers who have been requested to apply the language in real design cases.

Providing RIA user interfaces with accessibility properties

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) technologies are challenging the way in which the Web is being developed. However, from the UI accessibility point of view, these technologies pose new challenges that the Web Accessibility Initiative of the W3C is trying to solve through the use of a standard specification for Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA). Currently, the introduction of properties defined in WAI-ARIA is being done in an ad-hoc manner due to the lack of models, methodologies and tools to support the design of accessible RIA UIs. In this paper we propose a semantic approach to deal with this modeling issue by extending the RUX-Method, a model-based method to build RIA UIs. The approach includes the validation process of the accessibility issues at two different levels: the UI structure and the interactions behavior.

Web toolkits accessibility study

Access to increasing number of web applications is very good news especially for disabled people. These applications become richer and offer wide variety of services used in everyday's life (document creation, instant messaging, data storage, email communication, social networking, etc.). The problem is that at the same time these rich internet applications (RIA) become less accessible. There is a Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) 2 related to W3C 1 which is trying to cope with this problem. In particular the Accessible Rich Internet Application suite of W3C (WAI-ARIA) 3 is describing how to improve the accessibility of dynamic web content and advanced user interface controls in rich internet applications.

Editing Wikipedia content by screen reader: Easier interaction with the Accessible Rich Internet Applications suite

Purpose. This study aims to improve Wikipedia usability for the blind and promote the application of standards relating to Web accessibility and usability.Method. First, accessibility and usability of Wikipedia home, search result and edit pages are analysed using the JAWS screen reader; next, suggestions for improving interaction are proposed and a new Wikipedia editing interface built. Most of the improvements were obtained using the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) suite, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) within the framework of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). Last, a scenario of use compares interaction of blind people with the original and the modified interfaces.Results. Our study highlights that although all contents are accessible via screen reader, usability issues exist due to the user's difficulties when interacting with the interface. The scenario of use shows how building an editing interface with the W3C WAI-ARIA suite eliminates many obstacles that can prevent blind users from actively contributing to Wikipedia.Conclusion. The modified Wikipedia editing page is simpler to use via a screen reader than the original one because ARIA ensures a page overview, rapid navigation, and total control of what is happening in the interface.

WAI-ARIA live regions and channels: ReefChat as a case example

Web 2.0, enabled by the AJAX architecture, has given rise to new levels of user interaction with web pages. Many of these new and extremely popular Web 2.0 pages are better classified as fully-fledged applications, some examples being Google Maps, Google Docs and Flickr. Unfortunately, accessibility support in most AJAX applications is lacking. The Web Accessibility Initiative – Accessible Rich Internet Applications markup presents a solution to making these applications accessible. This article will look at current ARIA documentation available for Web 2.0 developers, a new innovation involving channels, and present a real life example of an ARIA based solution involving an accessible AJAX chat, ReefChat, and an ARIA compatible screen reader, Fire Vox.