Emerging Topics in Assistive Reading Technology: From Presentation to Content Accessibility

With the recent focus in the accessibility field, researchers from academia and industry have been very active in developing innovative techniques and tools for assistive technology. Especially with handheld devices getting ever powerful and being able to recognize the user’s voice, screen magnification for individuals with low-vision, and eye tracking devices used in studies with individuals with physical and intellectual disabilities, the science field is quickly adapting and creating conclusions as well as products to help. In this paper, we will focus on new technology and tools to help make reading easier--including reformatting document presentation (for people with physical vision impairments) and text simplification to make information itself easier to interpret (for people with intellectual disabilities). A real-world case study is reported based on our experience to make documents more accessible.