From screen reading to aural glancing: towards instant access to key page sections
Abstract
Whereas glancing at a web page is crucial for navigation, screen readers force users to listen to content serially. This hampers efficient browsing of complex pages and maintains an accessibility divide between sighted and screen-reader users. To address this problem, we adopt a three-pronged strategy: (1) in a user study, we identified key page-level navigation problems that screen-reader users face while browsing a complex site; (2) through a crowd-sourcing system, we prioritized the most relevant sections of different page types necessary to support basic tasks; (3) we introduced DASX, a navigation approach that augments the ability of screen-reader users to "aurally glance" at a complex page by accessing at any time the most relevant page sections. In a preliminary evaluation, DASX markedly reduced the gap in page navigation efficiency between screen-reader and sighted users. Our contribution provides the groundwork for rethinking access strategies that strongly tie aural navigation to user's tasks.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Prior work shows that readers with higher levels of graphical understanding use particular language and make more aggregate observations.
“Prior work shows that readers with higher levels of graphical understanding use particular language and make more aggregate observations [45,69].”
From The Accessibility of Data Visualizations on the Web for Screen Reader Users: Practices and Experiences During COVID-19 (2023) · cites this paper as [45]
Cites
Extracting Content Structure for Web Pages Based on Visual Representation
Cai, D., Yu, S., Wen, J.-R., & Ma, W. (2003) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/3-540-36901-5_42 · Cited by 347 · see citing works
User interface of a Home Page Reader
Asakawa, C., & Itoh, T. (1998) · doi:10.1145/274497.274526 · Cited by 186 · see citing works
A densitometric approach to web page segmentation
Kohlschütter, C., & Nejdl, W. (2008) · ACM International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management (CIKM) · doi:10.1145/1458082.1458237 · Cited by 131 · see citing works
Yeşilada, Y., Harper, S., Goble, C., & Stevens, R. (2004) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-27834-4_55 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Ahmed, F., Borodin, Y., Soviak, A., Islam, M. A., Ramakrishnan, I. V., & Hedgpeth, T. (2012) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/2380116.2380164 · Cited by 45 · see citing works
Borodin, Y., Bigham, J. P., Raman, R., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2008) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/1414471.1414499 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
SADIe: Structural semantics for accessibility and device independence
Harper, S., & Bechhofer, S. (2007) · ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · doi:10.1145/1275511.1275516 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
Towards one world web with HearSay3
Borodin, Y., Bigham, J. P., Stent, A. J., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2008) · International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A) · doi:10.1145/1368044.1368074 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Back navigation shortcuts for screen reader users
Ghahari, R. R., Ferati, M., Yang, T., & Bolchini, D. P. (2012) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2384916.2384918 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Self-citationSasayaki: an augmented voice-based web browsing experience
Zhu, S., Sato, D., Takagi, H., & Asakawa, C. (2010) · Proceedings of the 12th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers and accessibility · doi:10.1145/1878803.1878870 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Web Access for Older Adults: Voice Browsing?
Hanson, V. L., Richards, J. T., & Lee, C. C. (2007) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-540-73279-2_101 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Improving Accessibility of Transaction-centric Web Objects
Islam, M. A., Ahmed, F., Borodin, Y., Mahmud, J., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2010) · SIAM International Conference on Data Mining · doi:10.1137/1.9781611972801.4 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Browsing the Web from a Speech-Based Interface
Poon, J., & Nunn, C. (2001) · International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Yang, T., Gadde, P., Morse, R., & Bolchini, D. P. (2013) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2513383.2513435 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Self-citationThematic organization of web content for distraction-free text-to-speech narration
Islam, M. A., Ahmed, F., Borodin, Y., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2012) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2384916.2384920 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Gadde, P., & Bolchini, D. P. (2013) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/2508468.2514722 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Das, M., Gergle, D., & Piper, A. M. (2019) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3359293 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Review of Quantitative Empirical Evaluations of Technology for People with Visual Impairments
Brulé, E., Tomlinson, B. J., Metatla, O., Jouffrais, C., & Serrano, M. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3313831.3376749 · Cited by 76 · see citing works
Fan, D., Fay Siu, A., Rao, H., Kim, G. S.-H., Vazquez, X., Greco, L., O'Modhrain, S., & Follmer, S. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3557899 · Cited by 46 · see citing works
“Empirical studies have sought to characterize screen reader users’ browsing strategies, challenges, and coping mechanisms or workarounds to recommend solutions that improve both web accessibility and usability for BVI users [19, 23, 25, 46, 48, 72, 77, 87, 112, 120].”
BackgroundVERSE: Bridging Screen Readers and Voice Assistants for Enhanced Eyes-Free Web Search
Vtyurina, A., Fourney, A., Morris, M. R., Findlater, L., & White, R. W. (2019) · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3308561.3353773 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
Siu, A. F., Fan, D., Kim, G. S.-H., Rao, H., Vazquez, X., O’Modhrain, S., & Follmer, S. (2021) · International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/3430263.3452432 · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Barbosa, N. M., Hayes, J., Kaushik, S., & Wang, Y. (2022) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3519032 · Cited by 28 · see citing works
Vtyurina, A. (2019) · Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval · doi:10.1145/3295750.3298976 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Mateus, D. A., Silva, C. A., de Oliveira, A. F. B. A., Costa, H. A. X., & Freire, A. P. (2021) · Journal on Interactive Systems · doi:10.5753/jis.2021.1778 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
Guerreiro, J., & Gonçalves, D. J. V. (2016) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/2822910 · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Enabling Uniform Computer Interaction Experience for Blind Users through Large Language Models
Kodandaram, S. R., Uckun, U., Bi, X., Ramakrishnan, IV, & Ashok, V. (2024) · The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675605 · Cited by 24 · see citing works
Speaking with My Screen Reader: Using Audio Fictions to Explore Conversational Access to Interfaces
Phutane, M., Jung, C., Chen, N., & Azenkot, S. (2023) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3597638.3608404 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
In-Page Navigation Aids for Screen-Reader Users with Automatic Topicalisation and Labelling
Silva, J. S. R., Cardoso, P. C. F., de Bettio, R. W., Tavares, D. C., Silva, C. A., Watanabe, W. M., & Freire, A. P. (2024) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3649223 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Accessibility-Related Publication Distribution in HCI Based on a Meta-Analysis
Colley, M., Kränzle, T., & Rukzio, E. (2022) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3491101.3519701 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
Silva, C. A., de Oliveira, A. F. B. A., Mateus, D. A., Costa, H. A. X., & Freire, A. P. (2019) · Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC) · doi:10.1145/3357155.3358479 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Understanding the Usages, Lifecycle, and Opportunities of Screen Readers’ Plugins
Momotaz, F., Ehtesham-Ul-Haque, M., & Billah, S. M. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3582697 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Enabling Customization of Discussion Forums for Blind Users
Sunkara, M., Prakash, Y., Lee, H.-N., Jayarathna, S., & Ashok, V. (2023) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3593228 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
Understanding Screen Readers’ Plugins
Momotaz, F., Islam, M. T., Ehtesham-Ul-Haque, M., & Billah, S. M. (2021) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3441852.3471205 · Cited by 13 · see citing works
InSupport: Proxy Interface for Enabling Efficient Non-Visual Interaction with Web Data Records
Ferdous, J., Lee, H.-N., Jayarathna, S., & Ashok, V. (2022) · 27th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces · doi:10.1145/3490099.3511126 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Ferdous, J., Lee, H.-N., Jayarathna, S., & Ashok, V. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems · doi:10.1145/3579364 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Lewis, A., Martinez, J. J., Das, M., & Fogarty, J. A. (2025) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713784 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Semantic table-of-contents for efficient web screen reading
Ferdous, M. J., Uddin, S., & Ashok, V. G. (2021) · ACM Symposium on Applied Computing · doi:10.1145/3412841.3442066 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Exploring the Role of Tunnel Vision Simulation in the Design Cycle of Accessible Interfaces
Kamikubo, R., Higuchi, K., Yonetani, R., Koike, H., & Sato, Y. (2018) · International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/3192714.3192822 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Silva, J. S. R., Freire, A. P., & Cardoso, P. C. F. (2022) · International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/3493612.3520470 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
iTOC: Enabling Efficient Non-Visual Interaction with Long Web Documents
Lee, H.-N., Uddin, S., & Ashok, V. G. (2020) · Conference proceedings/Conference proceedings - IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics · doi:10.1109/smc42975.2020.9282972 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Rotate-and-Press: A Non-visual Alternative to Point-and-Click?
Lee, H.-N., Ashok, V. G., & Ramakrishnan, I. V. (2020) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-60149-2_23 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Alzalabny, S., Moured, O., Müller, K., Schwarz, T., Rapp, B. E., & Stiefelhagen, R. (2024) · Multimodal Technologies and Interaction · doi:10.3390/mti8110102 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Towards Personalized Annotation of Webpages for Efficient Screen-Reader Interaction
Lee, H.-N., & Ashok, V. G. (2020) · ACM Conference on Hypertext and Social Media (HT) · doi:10.1145/3372923.3404815 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Conversational Web Browsing: Where Do Existing DesignGuidelines Fall Short?
Piro, L., Verma, H., & Matera, M. (2025) · Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter (CHItaly) · doi:10.1145/3750069.3750161 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
Vtyurina, A. (2021) · UWSpace (University of Waterloo) · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Sorin, L., Lemarié, J., & Mojahid, M. (2015) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2700648.2811338
- Authors
- Gadde, P., & Bolchini, D.
- Affiliations
- Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 16th international ACM SIGACCESS conference on Computers & accessibility - ASSETS '14
- Publisher
- ACM Press
- Published
- 2014
- Pages
- 67-74
- OpenAlex
- W1994862647
- Cited by
- 30
- References
- 16
- Citations by year
- 2025: 2 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 1
- FWCI
- 0.98
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Tactile and Sensory Interactions
- Keywords
- screen readers, web accessibility, page navigation, user study, crowdsourcing
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
