Web Based Tool for

Accessibility of Bar Charts For

Visually Impaired Users

BY
BNS Kishan Choubay
1MS07CS144

Under Guidance of
Dept Of CSE, MSRIT
Jagadish S Kallimani
 AGENDA
• Introduction
• Representation of graphs
• Issues with primitive methods
• System Improvement proposed by Carberry et.al
• Architecture of System
• System Description
• Graph Translation process
• End user Analysis and Conclusions
• Bibliography

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 INTRODUCTION
• Information Graphics such as bar charts, line
graphs and pie charts play an important role in
many documents found on web.

• Graphs convey vital information regarding the

article(s) in a webpage.

• Visually impaired users face a problem while

using such a webpage even on availability of on
screen reading software.

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 Representation of Graphs
• Structured Representation- individual chart
elements can be accessed and some elements
are still modifiable

• Chart Images – Raster format of a Structured

Graph

On Web the Graphs are Generally Represented

as chart Images.
Dept Of CSE, MSRIT
 Issues with Primitive Methods for
Graph Accessibility
• A “mental map” of the graph needed to be
built which is a strenuous task for the
congenitally blind users as they had
nopersonal knowledge regarding the
appearance of information graphics .

• Usage of special equipment or preparation

work (such as model creation) by a sighted
individual.

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 SYSTEM IMPROVEMENT Proposed By
Sandra Carberry et.al
Their System followed goals:
• Majority of the visual impaired users must be able to use the
system -> Using Internet Explorer and Add-on of Freedom
Scientifics’ JAWS

• The system should not require use of equipment or any assistance

by the sighted user -> utilization of System with only one web
browser and screen reading software

• The interface presented to users should be easy to use and

compatible with their navigation preferences -> system is
completely keystroke driven and utilizes keys that do not interfere
with any of the current navigational settings for JAWS.

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

Architecture of The System

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 System Description
• Browser Extension

• Interaction with System

• Extensibility of Browser

• Browser Helper Object

• Message Recognition Module(MRM)

• Visual Extraction Module (VEM)

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 The Graph Translation Process
• Processing of the Image
– Image processed by VEM(Visual Extraction Module) to Produce
XML representation
– XML representation Under Goes Preprocessing

• MRM : A Bayesian Inference System

– Using of extracted Communicative Signals to reason out the
message

• Generation of Summary
– the intended message has been inferred by Bayesian inference
system, is used as the core content of a textual summary of the
graphic.

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

 End User Analysis and Conclusion
• The System developed was provided a rating of 8.2 on
usefulness and 9.2 for ease of use

• The system is a novel implementation that enables

visually impaired users to gain access to the
information provided by simple bar charts that appear
on a web page.

• The approach of presenting the message conveyed by

the information graphic does not require specialized
hardware, preparation work by a sighted individual, or
for the user to construct a mental map of the graphic.
Dept Of CSE, MSRIT
 Bibliography
• http://www.ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_infer
ence

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JAWS_
%28screen_reader%29

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT

THANK YOU

Dept Of CSE, MSRIT