What's next? A visual editor for correcting reading order

Abstract

The reading order, i.e. the serialized form, of the webpage should be a meaningful order for alternative representations such as the audible forms needed for visually impaired users. However, the serialized form rarely receives attention because it is visually elusive for authors using the existing WISIWYG authoring environments. Therefore we propose a new visualization technique called "reading flow" that visualizes the order of the serialized form with variable granularity by using a visible path extending through the elements in the content. This allows the authors to instantly evaluate the ordering by the visual pattern of the path. Our approach also allows them to interactively and intuitively reorganize the order of the serialized form. The results of two comparative experiments show that our reading flow greatly increases the ability of the authors to understand and organize the ordering compared to the existing techniques. © 2009 Springer.