An accessible web-based information broadcasting system for blind people

Abstract

Generally, audio data is most accessible to the blind. One of the possible ways to improve the web accessibility for the blind is to provide them with the information in audio format. It is essential to develop an automatic and customized system for blind people that converts the information on the Internet to audio in real-time. In this paper, we propose a novel accessible information broadcasting system, which is specific designed for blind people. The proposed system provides an audio-based information broadcasting service with an accessible web interface. The proposed system searches and converts the customized information on the Internet or user-specified articles to audio. Via modern text-to-speech technology, the conversion can be done automatically. By subscribing preferred subjects, blind people can access the information that they are interested in periodically without barriers. Moreover, the user interface of the proposed system is approved at A+ certification level under web accessibility guidelines. That is, blind people can access abundant information on the Internet on demand by using the proposed system. The proposed system approaches the goal of realizing friendly access of the Internet for blind people.