READ: A (Research) Platform for Evaluating Non-visual Access Methods to Digital Documents

Abstract

READ (which stands for Documents Architecture REstitution, in French), is a software allowing augmented access of tagged documents content. It was originally developed for a project aiming at evaluating informational and functional equivalents to text visual formatting and was very recently tested in a user study (results unpublished yet). The design flexibility of this platform allows an easy implementation of input and output modalities, as well as navigation functions. We wish to publish this application for noncommercial reuse in the short run; the main goal is here to easily allow researchers to evaluate non-visual access methods to documents, since current assistive technologies are known to raise multiple issues. A live demonstration of READ will enable attendees to experience the implemented output modalities and navigation functions, as well as the platform configuration and extension potential.