University of Manchester scientists are seeking to make
the web more accessible on mobile devices, using technology
developed to help blind and visually impaired people surf the
internet.
At present most websites do not work well on mobile devices,
despite almost two-thirds of mobiles offering browsers. But
increased use of mobiles is prompting efforts to improve the web
for mobiles, with the Worldwide Web Consortium publishing new best
practice guidelines in June.
The £205,000 three-year university project aims to draw on the
experience of visually impaired people and technology such as
screen readers to simplify the content of conventional websites so
that they can be read more easily on mobiles.
The project aims to produce a validation engine that can screen
websites to ensure they are accessible and compatible with mobile
use. This will work with software designed to strip away the
clutter from web pages and put them into a mobile-friendly
format.
Simon Harper, who will lead the project said, “Screen readers
used by blind or visually impaired web users are very good at
stripping web pages down into text only formats but what we want to
achieve are content rich formats which are just as accessible.”
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