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Assessing the Accessibility and Usability of Web Archives for Blind Users

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Linking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL 2024)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 15177))

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Abstract

Web archives play a crucial role in preserving the digital history of the internet, given the inherent volatility of websites that constantly undergo modifications, content updates, and migrations, or even cease to exist altogether. Web archives ensure that present and historical web information will be available in the future for researchers, historians, students, corporations, and general public. Given their importance, it is essential for web archives to be equally accessible to everyone, including those with visual disabilities. In the absence of a prior in-depth investigation in this regard, this paper examines the status-quo accessibility and usability of five popular web archives for people who are blind. Specifically, we analyzed reports generated by an automated accessibility checker tool and also collected feedback from a user study with 10 blind screen reader users. The analysis of accessibility reports revealed issues that were common across the different archives, including a lack of text alternatives for images and the absence of proper aria labels. The user study showed that blind users struggled to do even basic search tasks to locate desired mementos or snapshots of websites saved in the archives. The participants also explicitly indicated that they found it strenuous to interact with web archives. Informed by these findings, we provide accessibility design suggestions for archives’ web developers and assistive technology developers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A typical number of participants in studies with blind users is between 5 and 20.

  2. 2.

    https://github.com/accessodu/Web_Archives.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to express our gratitude to all those who contributed to this research. We also thank anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback and wish to express our gratitude to Madhubala Mantena, Harshit Koncharla, Bavitha Reddy Mamidi, Sampath Kumar Pedarla, Rohith Gampa, Moola Manoj Kumar, Lakshmi Jangala, Tanishq Motupalli, Abhinav Varma Lakamraju and Ramesh Kumar Bacchu for their valuable assistance in analyzing accessibility reports.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, 23529, USA

    Mohan Sunkara, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Sandeep Kalari, Sampath Jayarathna & Vikas Ashok

  2. Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, 11794, USA

    Satwik Ram Kodandaram

  3. Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, 48824, USA

    Hae-Na Lee

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  1. Mohan Sunkara
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Correspondence to Mohan Sunkara .

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  1. University of Salford, Salford, UK

    Apostolos Antonacopoulos

  2. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Annika Hinze

  3. Sorbonne University (CNRS), Paris, France

    Benjamin Piwowarski

  4. University of La Rochelle (L3i Laboratory), La Rochelle, France

    Mickaël Coustaty

  5. University of Padova, Padua, Italy

    Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio

  6. University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Francesco Gelati

  7. University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

    Nicholas Vanderschantz

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Sunkara, M. et al. (2024). Assessing the Accessibility and Usability of Web Archives for Blind Users. In: Antonacopoulos, A., et al. Linking Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries. TPDL 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 15177. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-72437-4_12

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