A customizable speech-based web navigation interface for people with disabilities

In recent years, the increasing importance of access to the World Wide Web has necessitated the development of alternative technologies that can facilitate Internet access for people with disabilities. In previous research, we proposed a new system that allows users unable to accurately operate a pointing device (such as a mouse) to efficiently navigate the web. In that system, users could select any element (links, buttons, form fields) on a web page by typing one or two characters [4]. The web navigation system was designed to minimize the number of required characters to uniquely select any element, and to separate the typing interface from the selection system. This allowed the user to navigate the web using any input device that was capable of producing alphanumeric characters.