Non Visual Navigation of Spreadsheet Components: Charts, Tables, and Mathematical Equations

The problem of non-visual navigation of the information in spreadsheet is that using current technologies no overview is available for the user about different components found in the spreadsheet. Several attributes associated with spreadsheets make them not easy to navigate by individuals who are blind and visually impaired. The large amount of information stored in the spreadsheet, the multi-dimensional nature of the contents found in a spreadsheet, and the several features it includes cannot be readily linearized by a screen reader or Braille display (e.g., charts and tables). Providing a more accessible non-visual navigation of spreadsheets will help individuals who are blind and visually impaired in getting a better education, will improve their skills, and assist them in entering new careers. The results from this work can be applied to other users groups requiring non-visual navigation of spreadsheets (e.g. exploring a spreadsheet using mobile phones). The building and evaluation of the multi-modal interfaces can be useful to designers of accessible interfaces, or anyone else who is interested in building and evaluating a multi-modal user interface.