Universal Access to Mobile Web Browsing through Treeview Adaptation

The researchers of the Department of Information Systems at University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) are conducting a research study funded by National Science Foundation on how to improve Web content browsing on mobile phones both for blind and sighted participants. This study has already been approved by IRB at UMBC.

We have developed a mobile application that can automatically change the presentation and navigation of traditional web pages to improve web navigation for blind users. To evaluate the effectiveness of the developed application and solicit users’ feedback, we would like to invite users that meet the following requirements to participate in our evaluation study, which will be held either in the Room 448 on the 4th floor of the ITE building at UMBC or at any other agreed locations, whichever is convenient to the participants.

Qualification: A qualified participant must 1) be blind and use text-to-speech screen reader as the primary method of navigating a smart phone, 2) be at least 18 years old, and 3) have prior experience of Web browsing on a mobile phone.

What you will do in the study: Participants will be asked to use a mobile device (will be provided by researchers) equipped with the developed mobile application to browse some Web pages and identify answers to a set of fact-oriented questions. Then, participants will fill out a questionnaire about their perception of the used mobile web systems, and answer some interview questions at the end of the study to give researchers some feedback on how to further improve the system to help users more. The entire study is expected to last about 1.5 hours. There are little risks to participants.

Compensation: Participants that follow the experimental instructions will receive $20 cash at the end of their study.

Contact: If you are interested, please contact Judith Uchidiuno at jodili1@umbc.edu and make an appointment for the study.