W4A2013 - Firefixia: An Accessibility Web Browser Customization Toolbar for People with Dyslexia

IBM Research in Brazil

© 2013 IBM Corporation

Firefixia: An Acessibility Web Browser Customization Toolbar for People with DyslexiaSantana, V. F.; Oliveira, R.; Almeida, L. D. A.; Ito, M.

IBM Research Brazil

Federal University of ABC

Federal University of Technology - Paraná



Introduction

“Web accessibility means that people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with the Web, and that they can contribute to the Web” (Web Accessibility Initiative)

Approximately 15% of the world's population have some form of disability (World Health Organization)

15-20% of the population have some of the symptoms of dyslexia (IDA):– slow or inaccurate reading;– poor spelling;– poor writing;– mixing up similar words.

At least 0.28% of the Web pages contain misspellings performed by people with dyslexia (Baeza-Yates and Rello)

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 mentions dyslexia in only one success criterion (i.e., 3.1.5 Reading Level)

– This might impact the way that WCAG readers consider dyslexia



Introduction

Rello et al. verified the effectiveness of guidelines for people with dyslexia. – DysWebxia which changes the way that articles are displayed in order to provide an

improved version for people with dyslexia.

Dickinson et al. developed SeeWord, a software that provides customization capabilities to improve Microsoft Word®.

Penfriend XL is an application that support users with dyslexia on predicting the next word people want to type.

ScreenRuler is a software that provides an overlay rule to support reading tasks.

Theme Font & Size Changer is a Firefox extension that allows users to customize font and text size of the Firefox UI.

Santanta et al. contributed with a survey on accessibility guidelines and a meta review on works dealing with dyslexia.

– Guidelines are organized in 9 groups: navigation, colors, text presentation, writing, layout, image/charts, end-user customization, markup, and video/audio.



Firefixia

To develop Firefixia we first analyzed the set of 40 guidelines presented in Santanta et al. and then verified which could be offered as a browser toolbar.

Firefixia was designed to bridge the gap between the possibilities of customizing Web pages and the needs of people with dyslexia.

Mozilla Firefox extension especially designed to apply predefined fixes, supporting people with dyslexia on customizing Web pages according to dyslexia people preferences.

Font size



Firefixia




Font type



Firefixia




Align the text



Firefixia




Line spacing



Firefixia




Letter spacing



Firefixia




Background color



Firefixia




Text color



Firefixia




Link color



Firefixia




Visited Link color



Firefixia




Line length



Firefixia




Display borders



Firefixia




Convert italic to bold



Firefixia




Undo everything



Experiment Design

Evaluation of the Firefixia– Adults diagnosed from Brazilian Association of Dyslexia – 2 or 3 test facilitators– Pre-test questionnaire

• Age• Education• Work• Use of internet• Time since the dyslexia was diagnosed• The use of any assistive technology

– List of 4 tasks to be performed by the participants in the Brazilian Federal Revenue page

– Post-test questionnaire• User’s opinion regarding the studied website• Analyze Firefixia’s characteristics.



Results

13 candidates (18 to 45 years old) – 6 agreed to participate by phone – 4 attended the test

Characteristics of the 4 people that attended the test:– Male– Diagnose: less than 1 year to more than 10 years– Did not do any kind of treatment

Participant Age Scholar Level Difficulties

A 18 High School Exchange word in reading when tired

Exchanging letters “p” and “b”

Difficulty in writing

B 24 Graduate Difficult to interpret numbers

C 62 Graduate Hard to read after the 3rd phrase

D 39 Undergraduate Difficulty in reading, interpreting numbers, read continuously and to know what is the line being read



Results

Participants C and D found difficult to use the evaluated website

Participants A and B did not point any critical issue, except by participant A that indicated that the text legibility was not bad

Participant A suggested the inclusion of a feature to indicate the line being read

Participant C said that missed a text search and orthographic correction

Participant D was a Chrome user and asked us to develop Firefixia for his favorite Web browser

Participants A and B mentioned that they want a copy of the toolbar to use it at home– In these cases, we informed that this is an ongoing study and that, as soon as we

deploy Firefixia, we would get in touch with all of them

Customization features that all participants mentioned as useful (i.e., the intersection of all opinions) are the following: text size, text alignment, and link color.

In relation to the opinions regarding the Firefixa, the answers ranged from good to really good



Conclusion

This work presented a qualitative study on how an end-user customization toolbar for a Web browser can help people with dyslexia.

The toolbar reached its goals by pointing an interesting direction on allowing end-user customization of websites.

Text size, text alignment, and color represent interesting customizable features websites should offer

As stated in the accessibility literature, the development of technologies for improving accessibility helps people with and without disabilities.



Future Works

Qualitative and quantitative studies about the preferences of people with dyslexia on using the Web.

Analyze, if any, different profiles of people with dyslexia and most significant accessibility barriers for them.

We thank all participants and the Associação Brasileira de Dislexia for being an indispensable partner in this project. This work was partially supported by the FINEP.

W4A2013 - Firefixia: An Accessibility Web Browser Customization Toolbar for People with Dyslexia

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