An exploratory study of web adaptation techniques for people with low vision

Abstract

People with low vision may experience accessibility barriers when they interact with the web. The navigation strategies of low-vision users are explored in this article in order to select the appropriate accessibility techniques needed to design web interfaces for their benefit. First, a literature study and an observational study involving low-vision users were carried out. From these studies, a set of adaptation techniques were obtained, which were then evaluated by means of an exploratory study with the participation of twelve users with low vision. The results show that the advantages of some adaptation techniques varied depending on the type of assistive technology used by participants to access the web. Some of the applied adaptation techniques seem turned out to be helpful only for users who utilized screen magnifier software, but not for those using the browser zoom feature. New research hypotheses for a future experimental study have been obtained based on the results of the study presented in this article.