When Iris Xie gives presentations on her latest research, she invites her audience to close their eyes and listen.
The listeners hear a rapid-fire robotic voice rattle through a string of words: “Library of Congress, visited link…” and so on. The audio narration demonstrates a screen reader – in this case, reading a landing page on the Library of Congress website.
Millions of visually impaired Americans rely on this type of technology daily to access websites on phones, tablets and computers. But, in many cases, the content is not always accessible for those users.
The problem is that most online platforms emphasize visuals, giving little consideration to the needs and primary senses of visually impaired users. That’s why Xie, a professor in the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s School of Information Studies, is creating research-driven design guidelines for digital libraries to better serve the visually impaired.
The effort, in collaboration with co-principal investigator Wonchan Choi, builds naturally on Xie’s nearly 30 years of expertise in human-computer interaction and information retrieval.
“How do we design information systems to help users effectively interact with them? That’s always been my goal,” she said, “starting from the early internet and now to mobile devices and then to AI.”
A new design template
This latest project has received nearly $700,000 through a three-year grant. Key partners include the Digital Library Federation, the Digital Public Library of America, HathiTrust Digital Library and other national organizations that plan to apply the guidelines to their operations.
The project’s cornerstone product is the Mobile Digital Library Accessibility and Usability Guidelines. Xie, Choi and their team describe this resource as a set of guidelines for digital library developers to better support users who rely on screen readers to use their mobile devices. For example, each interactive graph needs to incorporate a way for visually impaired users to interact with it — a feature many websites lack.
Practically speaking, the guidelines will make digital library resources across the country more accessible for roughly 50 million adults in the U.S. with visual impairments.
Listening to the visually impaired
Xie launched this work looking at desktops with Rakesh Babu, a researcher and former assistant professor at UWM who is blind. With the current project, which extends those guidelines from desktop computers to mobile devices, Babu continues to weigh in as a consultant.
The current research team conducted a user study with 120 members of the visually impaired community, focusing on their interactions with different types of digital libraries across four types of mobile devices: iPhone, iPad, Android phone and Android tablet.
“The problem is that we take things for granted as sighted users, and we never put our feet in their shoes,” Xie said. “We are talking to the user, unlike other designs. Our guideline is based on the user study, based on user problems.”
Optimizing mobile for all
Choi, an associate professor in UWM’s School of Information Studies, joined the team with expertise in the user-centered design of mobile applications.
In theory, he said, smartphones can be superior to desktop computers when it comes to supporting visually impaired users. That’s because the technology offers built-in screen readers and versatile hardware, plus mobility, touch features and gesture options for navigation.
The problem is that digital libraries and other websites are typically designed first for desktops and then adapted for mobile – with little-to-no consideration for visually impaired users. This often results in a clunky user experience on mobile.
Luckily, making mobile interfaces more accessible for visually impaired users is relatively simple if it’s planned early in the design process, Choi said.
Xie underscores that many of the design improvements, such as adding concise descriptions, as well as simplified navigations and page layouts, benefit the elderly, the visually impaired and others who use screen readers to access information. The guiding principle is to optimize information delivery for all.
“We have to think about how to (design) an interface that is a one-size-fits-all system,” Xie said. “Our big goal would be for all the digital library developers in the country to follow this guideline.”
