Vast amounts of information are now available in electronic formats and this trend is likely to continue. The latest development in electronic information provision is the eBook, which allows users to read multimedia documents via a PC or a small handheld device. The electronic provision of information has many advantages for people with print disabilities, but also raises new problems and barriers of accessibility and usability. The MultiReader Project will investigate the problems of orientation and navigation and the accessibility of eBook readers for people with a variety of print disabilities, as well as non-disabled users. It will develop innovative orientation and navigational support mechanisms to meet the needs of all readers. and will design, implement and evaluate a set of multimodal interfaces to multimedia documents which incorporate these navigational mechanisms and allow both print disabled and non-print disabled readers to effectively use multimedia documents. This paper will present results from the initial user requirements studies.
Vast amounts of information are now available in electronic forms: from novels to recipes, from encyclopaedia to weather reports. This trend to provide information in electronic format is set to continue and increase, with new forms for electronic information provision appearing. CDs, the World Wide Web (WWW) and most recently, eBooks, are all variations on the theme of electronic information provision. eBooks are electronic, sometimes text only or sometimes multimedia, documents which are read via a program on a PC (either desktop PC or pocket PC) or via a small handheld device (confusingly, also known as an eBook, but more usefully described as an "eBook reader"). A number of dedicated eBook readers are now appearing on the consumer market (e.g. Gemstar's REB 1100 and 1200 [1]) and personal digital assistants (PDAs) such as the Palm Pilot [2] and Handspring Visor [3] can also function as eBook readers if appropriate reading software is loaded. Material to be read on an eBook reader can be downloaded directly to a dedicated device via a modem or via the WWW. To allow compatibility between different devices, a general eBook format, the OpeneBook Publication Standard[4] has been proposed, based on HTML and XML.
Theoretically, the increased provision of information in electronic forms
has great advantages for people with a variety of print disabilities, as the
presentation of the information can be configured to assist in overcoming the
disability in question. For example, blind readers can have text converted to
synthetic speech, readers with partial sight can have text and graphics enlarged
and colour contrasts to suit their preferences, readers with dyslexia can also
have synthetic speech and different colour contrasts or highlighting of small
amounts of text.
However, there are also numerous problems with electronic information provision
for print disabled readers. These include:
A number of studies have been undertaken to establish initial user requirements for the different target user groups for a multimedia reading system. Here we report some of the preliminary findings of those studies.
2.1 Focus Group on reading habits and strategies
The focus group was composed of 8 university students, 7 of whom were mainstream
readers and 1 dyslexic. The average age of the group was 25 years, 4 members were
female and 4 male. The aim of the focus group was to obtain base line information on the
reading strategies that skilled mainstream readers use over a range of reading materials. A
range of reading materials were used as prompts to enable discussion on the different
ways the group read and sought information.
It was found that reading for pleasure and reading for work or study are approached
with different strategies. Reading for pleasure involved magazines and newspapers
which were generally skimmed through initially with articles of interest being returned to
later. Novels and other books read for pleasure were read from cover to cover. The
tactile quality of ink print materials was thought to enhance the pleasure the readers had
whilst reading. Reading for study or work was carried out more thoroughly with specific
aims to be fulfilled. More use was made of electronic documents in the work situation
although many of the group members still preferred to print out important documents in
order to annotate them.
2.2 Observational study of skilled mainstream readers
Fifteen mainstream readers were given tasks to complete using both ink print and eBooks
(on a PC). All participants were university students and had English as their first
language. The participants' computer experience ranged from 2 months to 10 years.
Having read a chapter of the ink print book, they were asked questions which required
them to find information either within the chapter or book using the reference section,
index or contents pages. Similar questions were asked of the participants when they had
read a section of the electronic book.
Although the participants were experienced ink print readers, their searching strategies
were not very effective. Little use was made of the indices and the majority of
participants simply scanned the text for the answers. Even participants with little
computer experience appeared to find the information required more quickly and easily
using the eBook. Observational studies with visually impaired and dyslexic readers are
to be conducted in the coming months.
2.3 User Panels
2.3.1 Mainstream readers
15 mainstream readers were interviewed about their reading habits and strategies with
different types of material. Ages ranged between 18-53 and participants were recruited
from a range of occupations. This group of participants supported the findings of the
focus group and were all willing to take part in further research later in the project.
2.3.2 Dyslexic readers
10 dyslexic readers were interviewed about the reading problems their dyslexia caused
them. The difficulties of dyslexia appear to fall into two main categories: visual
disturbances and memory problems.
To overcome the visual disturbances some dyslexics used coloured acetate overlays to
"fix" the print on the page. Similarly they changed the colour of their computer screens
and printed documents on coloured paper.
Reading was a very tiring activity which many dyslexics avoided where possible.
60% used speech output to enable them to continue studying/reading for longer. All of
the participants used a computer and several used specific software (e.g. Texthelp and
Inspiration) which allowed the words to be highlighted as they were read or typed. Being
able to change the font size, type and line spacing was also cited as helpful when reading
or working on a computer.
The memory problems associated with daily activities were generally overcome by the
use of electronic organisers or diaries. Short term memory became more troublesome
however when participants could not remember sequences such as the alphabet or
number order. This makes remembering instructions such as computer operations
difficult. The use of visual prompts in the form of pictures was found to help with some
of the poor memory problems.
2.3.3 Visually impaired readers
Ten visually impaired readers, 3 blind and 7 partially sighted with a mean age of 46.8
years were interviewed. The main problems the partially sighted readers found was that
they became very tired quite quickly with the strain of reading and that the current
assistive technologies such as Braille tended to be cumbersome and heavy. As with the
dyslexic user panel, the visually impaired readers want to be able to personalise their
equipment in terms of font size, type and screen layout. The use of speech output for
reading and hearing search terms and speech input for navigation was also requested by
the panel.
2.3.4 Print disability experts - dyslexia
A postal questionnaire was sent to 30 experts mainly teachers and tutors working
with dyslexic students. 10 responses were returned. The participants were asked
about the most common problems experienced by dyslexics and the strategies and
technologies they regularly recommended to assist with reading.
The problems identified by the experts supported the findings of the dyslexic
user panel, being mainly visual disturbances and memory problems. Strategies
recommended to overcome these problems included:
2.4 Initial user requirements
From these studies, the initial set of user requirements for the MultiReader
system is:
On the basis of the initial user requirements, a first prototype of the MultiReader
system is currently being designed. This prototype will be used particularly
to investigate the orientation and navigation problems which all users experience.
Different levels of navigation will be explored: fine-grained navigation between
small units of information, more far-reaching navigation within a document and
navigation between documents. A prototype document viewer based on XML is currently
being developed to explore these problems. The viewer uses the SML semantic
layer to help tackle the navigational problem. In addition, The MultiReader
system will explore the use of "topic maps" to assist in information navigation.
Topic Maps are a new ISO (ISO/IEC 13250) [8] standard for describing knowledge
structures and associating them with information resources. Called "the GPS
of the information universe", topic maps are able to provide powerful new ways
of navigating large information spaces. Topic maps consist of typed topics (identified
by their names), typed occurrences of topics (pointed to via locators) and typed
associations between topics.
Within the MultiReader project, a topic map environment will be set up, containing:
Initial user requirements for a multimodal, multimedia reading system for all readers, including readers with a range of print disabilities have been explored. Work will continue to clarify the user requirements further. A first prototype system is currently being designed and implemented, and this will be tested extensively with the full range of readers before further prototypes are developed.
References
[1] For further information see www.softbook.com
[2] For further information see www.palm.com
[3] For further information see www.handspring.com
[4] For further information see www.openebook.org/ps_wg.htm
[5] Available at www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/
[6] Kurze, M., Petrie, H., Morley, S., Deconinck F., and Strothotte, T. (1995).
New approaches for accessing different classes of graphics by blind people.
In I. Placencia-Porrero and R. Puig de la Bellacasa (Eds.), The European context
for assistive technology. Amsterdam: IOS Press. ISBN 90- 5199-220-3.
[7] Furnas, G.W. (1986). Generalized fisheye views. Proceedings of CHI '86.
New York: ACM Press.
[8] ISO/IEC 13250 Topic Maps: Information Technology -- Document Description
and Markup Languages.