Augment browsing and standard profiling for enhancing Web accessibility

The opportunity of effectively tailoring Web resources presentation - depending on each single user needs and preferences - represents a challenge and a necessity for accessibility and inclusion. On the Web, customizing means transcoding content according to some user and/or device (contextual) settings. Such a profiling refers to devices constraints, user habits, skills, different needs (or tastes) about interaction, in order to drive all the necessary procedures for content (re)shaping. The usual set up that users provide for assistive tools such as screen readers or speech-to-text applications, is a common practice (and a typical example) for a subjective, better enjoyment of resources. This work describes an augment browsing system, which allows users to set up their needs and preferences about Web pages presentation from the browser interface and is capable to automatically modify (transcode) content, according to such settings at client-side. The system is based on a widespread Web browser extension (GreaseMonkey) and well-known standards have been utilized to represent user’s settings. Finally a case-study of the system has been assessed on a widespread social network, also taking into account some evaluations about accessibility by a group of blind persons.