Events — Colloquia & Seminars
Improving Access for Blind Web Users
Speaker: Jeffrey Bigham, University of Washington
Date: Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Talk: 1:30 PM, 366 WVH
Abstract
The web is an unparalleled information resource, but remains difficult and frustrating to use for millions of blind and low vision people. My work attempts to achieve effective personalized access for blind web users with applications that benefit all users, even sighted ones.
I'll discuss the following projects to demonstrate how: (i) WebinSitu facilitates longitudinal remote user studies and has helped quantify accessibility problems, (ii) Usable CAPTCHAs dramatically improve the success rate of blind users on CAPTCHA problems and illustrate the potential of improving an individual interaction, (iii) TrailBlazer helps users efficiently connect interactions together by predicting what users might want to do next, and (iv) WebAnywhere adds speech output to any web page without installing new software, even on locked-down public terminals. These projects have made significant advances in web accessibility and usability for blind web users, and yielded general lessons applicable for adapting, personalizing, and delivering better content to all users.
Brief Biography
Jeffrey P. Bigham is a Ph.D. candidate in the Computer Science and Engineering Department and a member of the inter-disciplinary HCI group DUB at the University of Washington. He graduated with a B.S.E in Computer Science from Princeton University in 2003. His work enables end users to improve the interfaces that they use to access web content. Jeffrey started the WebInSight project with Richard Ladner to improve access for blind web users. As part of this project, Jeffrey has conducted studies to understand the challenges faced by blind web users and developed innovative solutions to address those problems. He created the WebAnywhere web application so blind web users can access the web from any computer, including locked-down public terminals. For his work, he has won the Microsoft Imagine Cup Accessible Technology Award, the W4A Accessibility Challenge Delegate's Award and the Andrew Mellon Award for Technology Collaboration. In 2008, he became an Osberg Presidential Fellow.