Identifying semantic constructs in Web documents to improve Web site accessibility

Abstract

Misleading user interfaces and overloaded web sites are some of the reasons why users avoid certain web sites while searching for information on the world wide web. In order to improve the usability and accessibility of web sites, techniques which take the semantic structure of the web documents into account have to be employed. The semantic analysis approach described in this paper aims at recognizing those parts within web documents that are particularly relevant for a specific usage scenario. Different combinations of syntactical constructs are mapped to different analysis classes whose semantic constructs correspond to concrete interaction tasks predefined in task models. The task models are used as a workflow guiding the user through the shopping procedure, whereby for each identified task a corresponding semantic concept on the web site is identified. The described techniques will be embedded in a so called screen reader application for visually impaired people who do not have the ability to use a graphical display. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008.