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Applying Web accessibility to Internet portals

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Abstract

Internet portals are becoming a very popular entry point to the Web. Users utilise them because of the large amount of information available. This paper aims to highlight the major hurdles disabled and/or older users encounter in Web portals, and to issue recommendations for portals’ layout and structure, based upon the results of a user requirements collection carried out by the authors. The findings point out that provision of a powerful search engine is essential for successful information retrieval. Moreover, due to the diverse and sometimes contradictory needs of the user groups under consideration, the customisation of information presentation plays an important role in ensuring accessibility and usability of Internet portals. The paper also includes a brief overview of the results in relation to the actual working draft of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0.

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Notes

  1. In the rest of the paper we refer to “standard task” as the task performed by all users, common to all of them.

  2. http://web.de/ (see Fig. 2)

  3. http://www-3.ibm.com/able/hpr.html

  4. See http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/WD-HTMLTECH-2030711.html.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank all of the test participants for their collaborations and useful suggestions for this study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Fraunhofer-Institut für Angewandte Informationstechnik (FIT, Schloss Birlinghoven, 53757 Sankt Augustin, Germany)

    Henrike Gappa & Gabriele Nordbrock

Authors
  1. Henrike Gappa
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  2. Gabriele Nordbrock
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Correspondence to Henrike Gappa or Gabriele Nordbrock.

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Gappa, H., Nordbrock, G. Applying Web accessibility to Internet portals. Univ Access Inf Soc 3, 80–87 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-003-0070-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-003-0070-x

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