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...braille displays. Even if this text information is embedded in a graphical user interface, it can be more-or-less readily extracted, However, access to truly graphic and multimedia information, including images, animations, and video material, is still highly problematic for readers who are visually impaired and for readers who are deaf or hard of hearing. The solution to this accessibility problem may well lie in adoption of multimedia and format techniques already being used in electronic environments such as the WWW to provide synchronization and coordination of multimedia materials.
In the MultiReader Project funded by the EU (European Union) that is described here, we have specifically explored the use of multimedia techniques to make such material accessible to readers with a range of print-related disabilities, including visual and hearing impairments as well as dyslexia. In this paper we discuss the use of content management approaches to provide personalized multimedia documents that suit the particular needs of individual print-disabled readers, in effect creating adaptable hypermedia documents. Our central hypothesis is that the needs of all readers cannot be addressed with one single multimedia document that is transformed in different ways for each user group, the so-called "one document for all" approach. Our approach instead involves providing actual alternative media to produce a variety of different views of the document in order to address particular user subsets (stereotypes (1)) and short-term individual preferences (the process of personalization).
Techniques for adaptation and personalization have not yet been applied to this area, although many ways to personalize navigation and interaction with documents for mainstream readers (without special reading needs) have been explored. (2) Earlier work in the AVANTI (Added Value Access to New Technologies and Services on the Internet) project addressed the needs of physically disabled and blind people by adaptation of information at the lexical, syntactic, and semantic levels of interaction. (3) Access to kiosk and desktop applications was successfully provided by verbalizing the textual content through speech synthesis and replacing keyboard-based interaction techniques with single-switch operations. However, temporal relationships involving time-dependent lexical entries, such as audio or movies, were not foreseen in this application.
Addressing the needs of a stereotype requires both information about system properties suitable for a cluster of users and information about the behaviors and actions of those users. For example, Electronic Program Guides (EPG) encode information about multiple temporal arrangements of different television genres, channels, and so forth for digital television. The television viewer interacts with an EPG and navigates through these time-dependent media. The interactive behavior of EPGs and the way that they represent the broadcast media can be modified, and alternatives based on several approaches to user modeling have been reported. (4) However, it is important to note that the broadcast media themselves are not modified in this process. In contrast, access to multimedia documents by print-disabled individuals requires adaptation of the media themselves or...
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