Keysurf: a character controlled browser for people with physical disabilities

For many users with a physical or motor disability, using a computer mouse or other pointing device to navigate the web is cumbersome or impossible due to problems with pointing accuracy. At the same time, web accessibility using a keyboard in major browsers is rudimentary, requiring many key presses to select links or other elements. We introduce KeySurf, a character controlled web navigation system which addresses this situation by presenting an interface which allows a user to activate any web page element with only two or three keystrokes. Through an implementation of a usercentric incremental search algorithm, elements are matched according to user expectation as characters are entered into the interface. We show how our interface can be integrated with a speech recognition input, as well as with specialized on-screen keyboards for people with disabilities. Using the user's browsing history, we improve the efficiency of the selection process and find potentially interesting ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: WWW
• Authors: Leo Spalteholz, Kin Fun Li, Nigel Livingston, Foad Hamidi
• Keywords: Internet Technology, Keywords Web Accessibility, Web Navigation Copyright, Web Page Element, WWW 2008