RIAM: Reciprocal Interoperability of Accessible and Mobile Webs

EPSRC Reference: EP/E002218/1

With the launch of the W3C's Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) 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 bandwidth, and different operating modalities, all Mobile device users effectively suffer the sensory and cognitive impairments normally only experienced by disabled users.

The aim of RIAM is to investigate ways in which to integrate, to mutual advantage, 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.

The research will investigate the use of Web documents and document objects 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 iterative 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;
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.

Objectives

The aim of RIAM is to investigate ways in which to integrate, to mutual advantage, research into the Accessible and Mobile Webs. Therefore, by the end of this project we expect to be able to:

1. Identify a homogenised system of Web guidelines, design techniques, and best practice (Work Package 1);
2. Developed a machine testable framework of accessibility along with any relevant additional non-testable components (Work Package 2);
3. Have experimented over this framework, and in the process of experimentation, built an automated Mobile Web validation tool (Work Package 3);

Further information about the progress of RIAM, please see our “project status” page.