Verifying that web pages have accessible layout

Abstract

Usability and accessibility guidelines aim to make graphical user interfaces accessible to all users, by, say, requiring that text is sufficiently large, interactive controls are visible, and heading size corresponds to importance. These guidelines must hold on the infinitely many possible renderings of a web page generated by differing screen sizes, fonts, and other user preferences. Today, these guidelines are tested by manual inspection of a few renderings, because 1) the guidelines are not expressed in a formal language, 2) the semantics of browser rendering are not well understood, and 3) no tools exist to check all possible renderings of a web page. VizAssert solves these problems. First, it introduces visual logic to precisely specify accessibility properties. Second, it formalizes a large fragment of the browser rendering algorithm using novel finitization reductions. Third, it provides a sound, automated tool for verifying assertions in visual logic.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Jun 11, 2018
Source ID
10.1145/3296979.3192407

Entities

People

  • Adam T. Geller
  • Michael D. Ernst
  • Pavel Panchekha
  • Shoaib Kamil
  • Zachary Tatlock

Organizations

  • Adobe
  • Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
  • National Science Foundation
  • United States Air Force
  • University of Washington

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computational Linguistics
  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Human-Computer Interaction (HCI).