Using cascading style sheets to accommodate websites for individuals with low vision

Abstract

The Web Community tolerates bad markup for visual effect even when the practice excludes partially sighted users. This paper describes a two-phase process to recondition websites: deconstruction and building a new skin. It uses cascading style sheets. Deconstruction replaces developer styles with good defaults for partially sighted users. Building a new skin customizes the site for individual preferences. It adjusts font size, font family, color configuration, line height, word spacing and letter spacing. Its styles for lists and tables aid navigation. The process works best on sites that conform to W3C standards. Even marginal sites can be transformed so that the new interface is pleasant so long as the site developer does not misuse markup too aggressively.

WILI - WEB Interface For People With Lowvision Issues

“…It performs the transformation of the HTML document after parsing by the browser. The drawback is that this requires installation of the mediator on the local machine, which may not be possible for the user, as not all users have administrator privilege or feel confident installing the software [13].…”