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Non-visual navigation of spreadsheets

Enhancing accessibility of Microsoft Excel™

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Abstract

The problem of non-visual navigation of the information in Excel™ spreadsheet is that using current technologies, no overview is available for the user about different components found in the spreadsheet. Several attributes associated with spreadsheets make them not easy to navigate by individuals who are blind. The large amount of information stored in the spreadsheet, the multi-dimensional nature of the contents, and the several features it includes cannot be readily linearized by a screen reader or Braille display (e.g., charts and tables). A user-centered design paradigm is followed to build an accessible system for non-visual navigation of Microsoft Excel™ spreadsheet. The proposed system provides the user with a hierarchical overview of the navigated components in an Excel™ spreadsheet. The system is multi-modal, and it provides the user with different navigation and reading modes for the non-visual navigation of a spreadsheet. This will help the users in adapting the non-visual navigation according to the task the user needs to accomplish.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

    Iyad Abu Doush

  2. Department of Computer Science, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, 88003, USA

    Enrico Pontelli

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  1. Iyad Abu Doush
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  2. Enrico Pontelli
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Correspondence to Iyad Abu Doush.

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Doush, I.A., Pontelli, E. Non-visual navigation of spreadsheets . Univ Access Inf Soc 12, 143–159 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-012-0272-1

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