Abstract
Scientific documents are a very specialised type of literature not only in terms of their topics and intended audience, but also in terms of their content and how it is presented. They generally use highly topical vernacular, mathematical formulas, diagrams, data visualisations, etc. While any single one of these features on its own poses a considerable accessibility problem, their combination makes the accessibility of scientific literature particularly challenging. However, with nearly all aspects of learning, teaching, and research moving to the web, there is a need to specifically address this problem for science on the web. In this chapter, we present an overview of the main challenges that arise when making scientific texts accessible. We will particularly concentrate on the accessibility problem for scientific diagrams and discuss the more common techniques for making them accessible via screen-reading, sonification and audio-tactile presentation. This chapter gives an overview of the current state of the art, sketches some of the technical details on how to create accessible diagrams and closes with some open research questions.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
- 2.
Proprioception, in this context, refers to the awareness of the reader of their relative position in the graphic that is explored.
References
Abboud S, Hanassy S, Levy-Tzedek S, Maidenbaum S, Amedi A (2014) Eyemusic: introducing a “visual” colorful experience for the blind using auditory sensory substitution. Restor Neurol Neurosci 32(2):247–257
Adenot P, Toy R (2018) Web audio api. W3c working draft, world wide web consortium. http://www.w3.org/TR/webaudio
Apple: voiceover (2019). www.apple.com/accessibility/osx/voiceover
Balik S, Mealin SP, Stallmann M, Rodman R, Glatz ML, Sigler VJ (2014) Including blind people in computing through access to graphs. In: ASSETS14 - proceedings of the 16th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility, pp 91–98
Berjon R, Faulkner S, Leithead T, Navara ED, O’Connor E, Pfeiffer S, Hickson I (2013) Hypertext markup language (html) version 5.0. W3c candidate recommendation, world wide web consortium. http://www.w3.org/TR/html5
Cabanier R, Mann J, Munro J, Wiltzius T, Hickson I (2015) Html canvas 2d context. W3c recommendation, world wide web consortium. http://www.w3.org/TR/2dcontext
Calder M, Cohen RF, Lanzoni J, Landry N, Skaff J (2007) Teaching data structures to students who are blind. In: Proceedings of the 12th annual SIGCSE conference on innovation and technology in computer science education, ITiCSE ’07. ACM, New York, pp 87–90. https://doi.org/10.1145/1268784.1268811
Cervone D, Krautzberger P, Sorge V (2016) Towards universal rendering in mathjax. In: Proceedings of the 13th web for all conference. ACM, p 4
Cherston J, Hill E, Goldfarb S, Paradiso JA (2016) Sonification platform for interaction with real-time particle collision data from the atlas detector. In: Proceedings of the 2016 CHI conference extended abstracts on human factors in computing systems, CHI EA ’16. ACM, pp 1647–1653. https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2892295
Cohen RF, Yu R, Meacham A, Skaff J (2005) Plumb: displaying graphs to the blind using an active auditory interface. In: Proceedings of the 7th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility, Assets ’05. ACM, New York, pp 182–183. https://doi.org/10.1145/1090785.1090820
Dahlström E et al (2011) Scalable vector graphics (svg) 1.1. W3c recommendation, world wide web consortium. www.w3.org/TR/SVG
Dallas Jr SA, Erickson AJ (1983) Sound pattern generator. US Patent 4,378,569
Davison BK (2012) Evaluating auditory graphs with blind students in a classroom. SIGACCESS Access Comput 102:4–7. https://doi.org/10.1145/2140446.2140447
Desmos: graphing calculator (2019). www.desmos.com/calculator
Diggs J, McCarron S, Cooper M, Schwerdtfeger R, Craig J (2017) Accessible rich internet applications (wai-aria) 1.1. W3c recommendation, international digital publishing forum. www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria
Emsley I, De Roure D, Chamberlain A (2017) A network of noise: designing with a decade of data to sonify janet. In: Proceedings of the 12th international audio mostly conference on augmented and participatory sound and music experiences, AM ’17. ACM, New York, pp 36:1–36:5. https://doi.org/10.1145/3123514.3123567
Fitzpatrick D, Godfrey AJR, Sorge V (2017) Producing accessible statistics diagrams in R. In: Proceedings of the 14th web for all conference. ACM, p 4
Gardner J (2005) New technologies for accessible tactile math and accessible graphics. In: Proceedings of the national federation of the blind goals for achieving math accessibility summit
Gardner JA (2002) Access by blind students and professionals to mainstream math and science. In: Proceeding of the 8th international conference on computers helping people with special needs. Springer
Gardner JA (2016) Universally accessible figures. In: International conference on computers helping people with special needs. Springer, pp 417–420
Gerino A, Picinali L, Bernareggi C, Alabastro N, Mascetti S (2015a) Towards large scale evaluation of novel sonification techniques for non visual shape exploration. In: Proceedings of the 17th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility, ASSETS ’15. ACM, New York, pp 13–21. https://doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2809848
Gerino A, Picinali L, Bernareggi C, Mascetti S (2015b) Eyes-free exploration of shapes with invisible puzzle. In: Proceedings of the 17th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility, ASSETS ’15. ACM, New York, pp 425–426. https://doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2811335
Godfrey AJR, Murray P, Sorge V (2018) An accessible interaction model for data visualisation in statistics. In: International conference on computers helping people with special needs. Springer
Goncu C, Marriott K (2015) Gracalc: an accessible graphing calculator. In: Proceedings of the 17th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility, ASSETS ’15. ACM, New York, pp 311–312. https://doi.org/10.1145/2700648.2811353
Gorlewicz JL, Burgner J, Withrow TJ, Webster RJ III (2014) Initial experiences using vibratory touchscreens to display graphical math concepts to students with visual impairments. J Spec Educ Technol 29(2):17–25
Harada S, Takagi H, Asakawa C (2011) On the audio representation of radial direction. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems, CHI ’11. ACM, New York, pp 2779–2788. https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979354
Hermann T (2008) Taxonomy and definitions for sonification and auditory display. In: Susini P, Warusfel O (eds) Proceedings of the 14th international conference on auditory display (ICAD 2008). IRCAM
Hermann T, Hunt A, Neuhoff JG (2011) The sonification handbook. Logos Publishing House
Iglesias R, Casado S, Gutierrez T, Barbero J, Avizzano C, Marcheschi S, Bergamasco M (2004) Computer graphics access for blind people through a haptic and audio virtual environment. In: Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International workshop on haptic, audio and visual environments and their applications, HAVE 2004. IEEE, pp 13–18
Inkscape 0.92—draw freely (2019). http://inkscape.org
Landau S, Russell M, Gourgey K, Erin JN, Cowan J (2003) Use of the talking tactile tablet in mathematics testing. J Vis Impair Blind 97(2):85–96
Last M, Gorelik A (2008) Using sonification for mining time series data. In: Proceedings of the 9th international workshop on multimedia data mining: held in conjunction with the ACM SIGKDD 2008, MDM ’08. ACM, New York, pp 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1145/1509212.1509220
Loetzsch J, Roedig G (1996) Interactive tactile media in training visually handicapped people. Institut National de la Sante et de la Recherche Medicale: colloques et seminaires, pp 155–160
Lötzsch J (1994) Computer-aided access to tactile graphics for the blind. In: International conference on computers for handicapped persons. Springer, pp 575–581
Mascetti S, Gerino A, Bernareggi C, Picinali L (2017) On the evaluation of novel sonification techniques for non-visual shape exploration. ACM Trans Access Comput 9(4):13:1–13:28. https://doi.org/10.1145/3046789
Meijer PB (1992) An experimental system for auditory image representations. IEEE Trans Biomed Eng 39(2)
Miele JA, Landau S, Gilden D (2006) Talking TMAP: automated generation of audio-tactile maps using Smith-kettlewell’s TMAP software. Br J Vis Impair 24(2):93–100
Moseng Ø et al. (2019) Highcharts—make your data come alive. https://www.highcharts.com
Braille Authority of North America (2010) Guidelines and standards for tactile graphics. http://www.brailleauthority.org/tg
Parkes D (1988) Nomad, an audio-tactile tool for the aquisition, use and management of spatially distributed information by visually impaired people. In: Proceeding of the second international symposium on maps and graphics for visually handicapped people
Parkes D (1991) Nomad: enabling access to graphics and text based information for blind, visually impaired and other disability groups. Technol People Disabil 5:690–714
R Core Team: R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria (2017). www.R-project.org
Sarkar R, Bakshi S, Sa PK (2012) Review on image sonification: a non-visual scene representation. In: 2012 1st International conference on recent advances in information technology (RAIT). IEEE, pp 86–90
SAS: SAS graphics accelerator (2017). https://support.sas.com/software/products/graphics-accelerator
Scientific F (2019) Jaws. https://freedomscientific.com/Products/Blindness/JAWS
Smith T, Greenberg J, Reid S, Moore E (2018) Architecture for accessible interactive simulations. In: Proceedings of the 15th web for all conference. ACM
Soiffer N (2005) Mathplayer: web-based math accessibility. In: Proceedings of the 7th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on computers and accessibility. ACM, pp 204–205
Sorge V (2018) Speech rule engine version 2.2.2. http://github.com/zorkow/speech-rule-engine
Sorge V, Chen C, Raman T, Tseng D (2014) Towards making mathematics a first class citizen in general screen readers. In: 11th Web for all conference. ACM, Seoul, Korea
Sorge V, Lee M, Wilkinson S (2015) End-to-end solution for accessible chemical diagrams. In: Proceedings of the 12th web for all conference. ACM
Stark PB (2018) Sticigui. www.stat.berkeley.edu/~stark/SticiGui
Taibbi M, Bernareggi C, Gerino A, Ahmetovic D, Mascetti S (2014) Audiofunctions: eyes-free exploration of mathematical functions on tablets. In: Computers helping people with special needs. Springer
Texthelp: Equatio (2019). www.texthelp.com/en-gb/products/equatio
ViewPlus (2018a) http://viewplus.com/viewplus-embossers-at-a-glance
ViewPlus (2018b) http://viewplus.com/product/tiger-software-suite
Walker BN, Mauney LM (2010) Universal design of auditory graphs: a comparison of sonification mappings for visually impaired and sighted listeners. ACM Trans Access Comput 2(3):12:1–12:16. https://doi.org/10.1145/1714458.1714459
Wörtwein T, Schauerte B, Müller KE, Stiefelhagen R (2015) Interactive web-based image sonification for the blind. In: Proceedings of the 2015 ACM on international conference on multimodal interaction, ICMI ’15. ACM, pp 375–376. https://doi.org/10.1145/2818346.2823298
Yeo WS, Berger J (2005) A framework for designing image sonification methods. In: Proceedings of international conference on auditory display
Yoshida T, Kitani KM, Koike H, Belongie S, Schlei K (2011) Edgesonic: image feature sonification for the visually impaired. In: Proceeding of the 2nd augmented human international conference. ACM
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer-Verlag London Ltd., part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sorge, V., Ahmetovic, D., Bernareggi, C., Gardner, J. (2019). Scientific Documents. In: Yesilada, Y., Harper, S. (eds) Web Accessibility. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7440-0_22
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-7440-0_22
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-7439-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-7440-0
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)