Jeffrey P. Bigham University of Washington Seattle, Washington, USA webinsight.cs.washington.edu A Screen Reader On-the-Go

Promises and Challenges Advancement in Technical Challenges  ARIA, AxsJAX, others Access to Applications Anywhere  , documents, social connections… No screen reader on most computers  Another program to support  Awareness  Cost Introduction

Accessing the Web On-the-Go Many devices - Serve different needs  Devices you have to carry Expensive Need to carry with you  Installation & Executables Not installed on most computers Need permission to install them  Operating System Built-Ins Narrator on Windows VoiceOver on OS X Introduction Hearsay Fire Vox

WebAnywhere Summary Self-voicing, web-browsing web application  Runs on any web-enabled computer or device Designed for Minimal requirements  Runs on locked-down public terminals  No software to install Assist web developers in creating content 1 Accessible Across the World [1] Mankoff et al., “Is your web page accessible?: a comparative study of methods for assessing web page accessibility for the blind. CHI WebAnywhere

Screenshot 5

WebAnywhere Architecture WebAnywhere Client interface in Javascript Speech MP3s retrieved from server Played with Flash or Embedded Players

(15 in Seattle, WA) WebAnywhere

Released Available Free  From May 2008 Peaked at ~5000 / week  Steady at ~1000 / week Overwhelming Response  Blogs  News and other media  8 WebAnywhere Release

Comments “BRAVO!! Finally visually impaired individuals are able to bust through the biggest barrier placed before us so far, thanks to Web Anywhere.” -- Minnesota “This is great news…not everyone can afford JAWS, etc.” - Kentucky 9 WebAnywhere Release

Scarier Comments “i am blind and have been for 23 years i have no sight at all i do have jaws on my pc but it gives me alot of problems at times and is costly to upgrade.” “we were thinking of purchasing JAWS, but were thinking of using WebAnywhere as an alternative” (paraphased) 10 WebAnywhere Release

Requests Current screen reader features  This often varied from user to user Very few have mentioned latency  People located all over LANGUAGUES  Released on the web everyone can access it  Immediate access to a global audience WebAnywhere Release

WebAnywhere by Country 12 WebAnywhere Goes Global

Global Effort 13 Developer in Norway helping to code. Person in Brazil developing Portuguese language. Person in China developing Chinese language. WebAnywhere Goes Global

WebAnywhere is Open Source 14 webanywhere.googlecode.com 14 WebAnywhere Goes Global

Future Work Many, many improvements possible…  New languages, more shortcuts, better TTS, security, ARIA, downloadable TTS, improved robustness, integrate with existing screen readers, better prefetching, aggressive caching, user studies, ‘plugin’ support, visual highlighting, explicit support for web developers, … Future Implications

Platform for Assistive Technology  What you want, where you want it Advantages of Web Application  Rapid iterations of design  Rapid dissemination of new designs  Rapid expansion across the world Broader Themes Future Implications

On any computer near you… Released in May 2008  Contribute to the open source project!  Come to the DEMO Conclusion

WebAnywhere an Important Option Now  Blind web users on-the-go  People unable to afford another screen reader  An easy way to experience screen readers WebAnywhere platform for assistive tech. Works everywhere Harbinger of global market to come Conclusion

19 The End webanywhere.cs.washington.edu webanywhere.googlecode.com Our supporters: National Science Foundation Grant IIS A Boeing Professorship Microsoft Imagine Cup Thanks to: Anna A. Cavender, Sangyun Hahn, T.V. Raman, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Lindsay Yazzolino, and our user study participants and consultants.