Patent Application
20050216484
The present invention relates generally to the field of computers and in particular to a method of providing synopsis containers in a markup language to summarize large data sets to facilitate comprehension by users with accessibility aids.
Computers are ubiquitous in modern society, and utilized daily by millions of people for a wide variety of tasks, including accessing web pages from the World Wide Web of the Internet. However, physical disabilities preclude many people from utilizing a computer for such purposes. In particular, those with visual impairments often cannot see the web pages displayed on their computer's display device. To address this need, a variety of devices are available, collectively referred to herein as screen readers. Implemented as add-on cards or in software, screen readers covert text displayed on the computer's display to audible speech. The screen reader functionality allows many visually impaired individuals to utilize a computer for a variety of tasks, including accessing websites from the Internet.
However, in many cases, the functionality of the screen reader does not render web pages accessed from the Internet particularly useful. For example, many web pages include tables and other data structures containing large amounts of information, which the screen reader converts to speech. For example, a table five columns wide with twenty rows contains 100 elements, each of which will be read to the user by the screen reader. Sighted individuals typically scan such tables, focusing only on items or elements of relevance or interest. This is not possible in the case of a screen reader, which can only convert the entire data set to an audible format.
As an example of this problem, consider the HTML code of
The elements of the HTML code of
The present invention relates to a method of synopsizing large data sets to facilitate the use of an accessibility system. The method includes providing a large data set and formatting the large data set for transmission, generating a synopsis of the large data set and formatting the synopsis of the large data set in a synopsis container. The synopsis container, including both the large data set and the synopsis of the large data set, is then transmitted to a computer having an accessibility system.
In another aspect, the present invention relates to a markup language data structure for synopsizing a large data set. The data structure includes a data structure initial tag, at least one attribute comprising a synopsis of the large data set, a markup language data structure containing the large data set and a data structure terminating tag.
The processor 12 is connected to a bus 18, to which are connected a variety of data storage devices and input and output devices. For example, a fixed disk drive 20 containing a computer-readable medium, from which software 16 may be loaded into memory 14, may be attached to the bus 18. Additionally, a removable media disk drive 22 that receives removable computer-readable media 24 may be attached to the bus 18. The removable media 24 may comprise a floppy disk, a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM, a magnetic tape, high-capacity removable media, or the like. Removable media 24 may contain a variety of digital data, and in particular may contain software 16, such as a web browser application. The software 16 may be copied from the removable media 24 to the fixed disk drive 20, and subsequently loaded into memory 14 from the fixed disk drive 20. Alternatively, the software 16 may be loaded directly from the removable media 24 into the memory 14.
Also connected to the bus 18 are input devices such as a keyboard 26 and a mouse 28, as well known in the art. The computer system 10 may additionally include output devices such as a printer 30, display device 32, and one or more speakers 34. Display device 32 may comprise a traditional CRT monitor, a liquid crystal display (LCD), or the like. A communications interface 38 may additionally connected to the bus 18. The communications interface may provide data communications with a computer network such as the Internet 40. In particular, it may allow the computer 10 to receive web pages from a web server 42, using the Hyper-Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) as well known in the art. Data received from the HTTP server 42, such as for example data in the Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML) or a variant thereof (such as XML or the like) may be displayed on the display device 32 by a web browser application in software 16.
A screen reader 36 may comprise a hardware module connected to the bus 18, as depicted in
As discussed above, a significant deficiency of the screen reader of the prior art is the inability to summarize large data sets, such as the table 70 of
One embodiment of a synopsis container according to the present invention, implemented as an extension to the Hyper-Text Markup Language (HTML). In this embodiment, HTML tags <CONTAINER> and </CONTAINER> are added, and define the boundaries of the synopsis container. Note that other tags may be substituted for the word CONTAINER. The syntax and operation of the CONTAINER tag is depicted in
The synopsis container is defined in HTML code 72 by the <CONTAINER> tag 74 and the </CONTAINER> tag 84. Note that the synopsis container includes, or “contains” a large data set (in this example, the table 60). This is indicated by the <TABLE> and </TABLE> tags 58, 61 being within the <CONTAINER> and </CONTAINER> tags 74, 84, in the well known hierarchical structure of HTML code. The synopsis container optionally includes a title, assigned to the attribute TITLE 76. The synopsis container also includes a summary 80, assigned to a SUMMARY attribute 78. The summary 80 is an abstract or synopsis of the information contained in the associated large data set. The summary 80 may be automatically generated, or alternatively, may be written by an individual summarizing the contents of the data set. A flag, such as the READ_CHILDREN attribute 82 may be assigned a value indicating whether or not the accompanying large data set items are to be displayed. Additional attributes for the synopsis container may be defined, as necessary or desired. Also, note that the attributes TITLE 76, SUMMARY 78 and READ_CHILDREN 82 may be renamed.
The container tag may be recognized and implemented only by screen readers 36 and similar applications. That is, a typical web browser running on a computer 10 without special accessibility hardware or software, may ignore the CONTAINER keyword, and display the associated large data set, as depicted in
At step 92, the server 42 generates a summary or synopsis of the contents of the large data set. This may be done automatically, for example, by identifying key terms or parameters within the data set, and generating a count of the key terms or parameters falling within certain predetermined values. Alternatively, for static large data sets, generating the synopsis may comprise an analysis or review by an individual, who writes a summary of the salient features or parameters of the large data set.
At step 94, the large data set and the synopsis of the large data set are together assembled into a synopsis container, as described above. Note that this step may be combined with step 90, for example, generating HTML code of the large data set and its synopsis simultaneously. Finally, the synopsis container, including both the large data set and the synopsis of the large data set, are transmitted to one or more client terminals, such as the computer 10, at step 96.
Although the present invention has been described herein with respect to particular features, aspects and embodiments thereof, it will be apparent that numerous variations, modifications, and other embodiments are possible within the broad scope of the present invention, and accordingly, all variations, modifications and embodiments are to be regarded as being within the scope of the invention. The present embodiments are therefore to be construed in all aspects as illustrative and not restrictive and all changes coming within the meaning and equivalency range of the appended claims are intended to be embraced therein.
