WebSound: a generic Web sonification tool, and its application to an auditory Web browser for blind and visually impaired users                                                    


Lori Stefano Petrucci       , Eric Harth     , Patrick Roth     , Andr Assimacopoulos           , Thierry Pun     
Computer Science Dept.                                                     UCBA                        
CUI, University of Geneva                               Swiss Central Union of and for the Blind           
CH  1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland                              Schtzengasse 4, CH- 9000 St.-Gallen,             
+41 22 705 76 32                                                    Switzerland                      
Lori.Petrucci@cui.unige.ch                                                                                   




ABSTRACT                                                                                                           
The inherent visual nature of Internet browsers makes the Web inaccessible to the visually impaired. Although several non-visual 
browsers have been developed, they usually transform the visual content of HTML documents into textual information
only, that can be rendered by a text-to-speech converter or a Braille device. The loss of spatial layout and of textual attributes
should be avoided since they often bear visually important information. Moreover, typical non-visual Internet browsers do
not allow visually impaired and sighted individuals to easily work together using the same environment. This paper presents
WebSound, a new generic Web sonification tool and its application to a 3D audio augmented Internet browser (Internet
Explorer 5.0) developed by the Computer Vision Group at the University of Geneva.                                  



REFERENCES                              
1. Petrucci L., Roth P., Assimacopoulos A., Pun T. An Audio Browser for Increasing Access to World Wide Web Sites for
 Blind and Visually Impaired Computer Users. HCI99, Munich, pp. 995-998.
2. Roth P., Petrucci L., Assimacopoulos A., Pun T. AB-Web: Active audio browser for visually impaired and blind users. In
 International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD'98). Glasgow, UK, November 1998.
3. Brewster S.A. Using Non-Speech Sounds to provide Navigation Cues. ACM transaction on Computer-Human Interaction
 5(3), pp. 224-259.                     
4. Brewster S.A. Providing a structured method for integrating Non-Speech Audio into HCI. Doctoral Dissertation, University
 of  York, 1994.                        
5. James F. Presenting HTML Structure in Audio: User Satisfaction with Audio Hypertext. ICAD96 Proceedings. Xerox
 PARC, 4-6 Nov. 1996, pp. 97-103.       
6. Blauert J. Spatial Hearing. The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1997.
7. Lumbreras M., J. Sanchez. Interactive 3D Sound Hyperstories for Blind Children. CHI99 Pittsburgh PA, USA.
8. Harth E., Plate-forme de Sonification Dynamique de Pages Web Pour Aveugles et Malvoyants. Diploma thesis, University
 of Geneva, 1999.                       

