Research on Text Customization

This page summarizes studies on text customization conducted as part of the TAdER Project:

RTF-PDF Study

This study explored how advanced users customize text when they have a wide range of options available in a word processing application, and observed their use of PDF documents, which has few text customisation options.

Results of this study are published in:
Henry, Shawn Lawton. (2012) Developing Text Customisation Functionality Requirements of PDF Reader and Other User Agents. In Proceedings of the 13th international conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP'12). Miesenberger, K.; Karshmer, A.; Klaus, J.; Zagler, W. (Eds.). Vol. Part I. Springer-Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp. 602-609. DOI=10.1007/978-3-642-31522-0_91
Available from MIT Open Access Articles (http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/74638) (Ironically this is provided in PDF. If you want it in another format, please contact me.)

Abstract: This paper addresses the text customisation needs of people with low vision, dyslexia, and related conditions that impact reading, including people with declining eyesight due to ageing. It reports on a literature review and an initial study that explores the aspects of text that users customize (e.g., size, colour, leading, linearization/reflow, and more) for reading RTF and PDF documents, in operating system settings, and in web browser settings. It presents the gap between users’ needs and PDF user agent (primarily Adobe Reader) functionality.
The existing literature and this exploratory study indicate that with the technology currently available, PDF is not sufficiently accessible to many people with low vision, dyslexia, and related conditions that impact reading. This paper aims to encourage additional text customisation functionality in Adobe Reader; and to encourage more rigorous studies to understand, document, and communicate how to better meet users’ text customisation needs through mainstream user agents.

User Style Sheet Study

This study explored how advanced users customize text in user style sheets, which offers a wide range of options. It gathered user style sheets designed to improve readability and analyzed which aspects of text display was customized in the style sheet, and to what settings (for example, which font-family).

Results of this study are published in:
Henry, Shawn Lawton. (2012) CSS for Readability: Analysis of user style sheets to inform understanding users' text customization needs. In Proceedings of the W3C WAI Symposium on Text Customization for Readability. Henry, S.L. and Sloan, D. (Eds.). Available at www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2012/text-customization/r14

Abstract: This paper provides information to help answer the question: What aspects of text display do users need to be able to customize in order to read effectively? It reports on a study that gathered user style sheets and analyzed how users' customized text display in the style sheets.

Survey on Changing Text Display for Easier Reading

This survey asked for perspectives on how important it is to be able to change or "customize" specific aspects of text display, such as text size. The Survey on Changing Text Display for Easier Reading web page has more information on the survey focus and results.