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| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/E002218/1 |
| Title: |
RIAM: Reciprocal Interoperability between the Accessible and Mobile Webs |
| Principal Investigator: |
Dr S HARPER |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Researcher Co-investigator: |
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| Project Partner: |
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| Department: |
Computer Science |
| Organisation: |
The University of Manchester |
| Scheme: |
First Grant Scheme |
| Starts: |
01 October 2006 |
Ends: |
30 September 2009 |
Value (£): |
205,678
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Multimedia |
User Interface Technologies |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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| Related Grants: |
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| Panel History: |
| Panel Date | Panel Name | Outcome |
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12 Jun 2006
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People and Interactivity Panel
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Announced
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Summary |
The aim of RIAM is to investigate ways in which to integrate together research into the Accessible and Mobile World Wide Webs (Web), to develop a common infrastructure, and to validate this infrastructure using existing Web documents and Mobile client simulators.
With the launch of the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative, it has become increasingly obvious that access to the Mobile Web suffers from interoperability and usability problems similar to those experienced by disabled people when accessing the existing Web. With the move to small screen size, low connection speeds, and different ways of interacting, all Mobile device users effectively suffer the sensory and cognitive impairments normally only experienced by disabled users.
The research we propose will investigate the use of Web documents and parts of those documents in order to ensure device independence and place the Mobile Web in a position to access the entire Web. We assert that if the Web is accessible then it is also Mobile, and will validate our assertions by running a series of repeating experiments, testing the results of these experiments against our objectives, and using the results to refine our models and software tools.
Thus RIAM has four major aims:
(1) To review current guidelines, best practices, and techniques related to Web page interaction and to the intersection between these guidelines, practices, and techniques.
(2) Use the results of this research to design a system allowing the Accessible Web and Mobile Web to interoperate.
(3) To devise a framework and strategy to migrate this research into the Mobile Web domain; and
(4) To develop an automatable validation methodology (and Key Performance Indicators) to test a Web Document's device independence (ergo its suitability for the Mobile Web) based on research from the Accessible Web.
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| Final Report Summary |
The aim of RIAM was to investigate ways in which to integrate together research into the accessible and mobile World Wide Webs (Web), to develop a common infrastructure, and to validate this infrastructure using existing Web documents and mobile client simulators. With the launch of the W3C's mobile Web Initiative, it became increasingly obvious that access to the mobile Web suffered from the interoperability and usability problems similar to those experienced by disabled people when accessing the existing Web. With the move to small screen size, low connection speeds, and different ways of interacting, all mobile device users effectively suffered the sensory and cognitive impairments normally only experienced by disabled users; so-called situationally induced impairments. The research we proposed investigated the use of Web documents and parts of those documents in order to ensure device independence and place the mobile Web in a position to access the entire Web. We asserted that if the Web was accessible then it would also be mobile, and we validated our assertions by running a series of repeating experiments, testing the results of these experiments against our objectives; and using these results to refine our models and software tools. Thus RIAM had four major aims:
1) To review current guidelines, best practices, and techniques related to Web page interaction and to the intersection between these guidelines, practices, and techniques.
2) Use the results of this research to design a system allowing the accessible Web and mobile Web to interoperate.
3) To devise a framework and strategy to migrate this research into the mobile Web domain; and
4) To develop an automatable validation methodology to test a Web Document's device independence (ergo its suitability for the mobile Web) based on research from the accessible Web.
In summary, RIAM has outstripped its objective and aims and made tangible contributions to research, Web standards, developer standards and technologies, public engagement, and our beneficiaries (http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/research/riam/status.php). Our work augmented, and combined, current accessibility and mobile Web guidelines with those derived from empirical evidence. Thereby placing existing empirical evidence in support of current guidelines and enabling the formulation of new ones. We combined these sets of guidelines into one holistic framework; demonstrating the reciprocity between guidelines and impairments by adding mobility as an additional situationally induced impairment, and disseminating this information via the W3C Standards Process. This framework was then transferred to the pre-existing Barrier Walkthrough Method; a manual process representing our 'spirit of the law'. The guidelines that could be tested automatically were then transferred to the W3C's mobileOK Checker and the complete set was transferred to the eclipse ACT Framework; an automated validation engine representing our 'letter of the law'.
In this case, we have achieved our overarching objective and our four aims and additionally have identified a number of branches for further work; see our Technical Reports Archive (http://hcw-eprints.cs.man.ac.uk/view/subjects/riam.html). We have contributed to the creation of two major W3C standards documents (http://www.w3.org/WAI/ mobile/experiences and http://www.w3.org/TR/mwbp-wcag/) as well as a modified W3C mobileOK validation engine and eclipse framework via the ACTF project (http://www.eclipse.org/actf/). We have lead two tutorials focusing on the subject of RIAM and have authored two book chapters to disseminate our work to academics, researchers, and industrial developers. In addition, we have released a number of user focused articles (http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/news/labels/RIAM.php) gaining over confirmed stories in the national and international press (http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/research/riam/status.php#public).
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| Further Information: |
http://hcw.cs.manchester.ac.uk/research/riam/status.php |
| Organisation Website: |
http://www.man.ac.uk |
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