Screen Reader Contextual Link Resolution via Search Engine Mediation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Visually impaired users face difficulties navigating and understanding ambiguous links on web pages, as existing screen readers provide limited contextual information, making it hard to distinguish between links with similar descriptions.
Innovation Solution
A screen reader system that receives user input requesting information about a link, sends a request for contextually relevant information to a search engine using the link's URL, and provides the received information back to the user, including page titles or image captions, to enhance navigation and understanding.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If screen readers provide detailed information about all links, then users can better understand link content, but visually impaired users still cannot distinguish between links with similar descriptions
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a search engine as an intermediary between the screen reader and the link content. When a user encounters an ambiguous link, the screen reader queries the search engine with the link's URL or text, and the search engine returns contextual information (such as page titles, descriptions, or relevant content) that helps the user distinguish between similar links without requiring them to navigate to each link manually.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-fetching and caching contextual information about links before the user needs it. The screen reader can query the search engine in advance for information about links on the current page, storing this information locally so that when the user encounters ambiguous links, the contextual information is already available for immediate comparison and differentiation.
2Loss of information
If screen readers query search engine for every link, then contextually relevant information is provided, but computer resources and bandwidth are consumed
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements local quality by caching contextual information locally on the user's device after the first query. Instead of querying the search engine for every link, the system stores the retrieved contextual information in a local cache. When the same link or similar links are encountered again, the cached information is used directly, significantly reducing repeated network queries and conserving bandwidth and computational resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-fetching contextual information for links that are likely to be encountered and caching them before the user actually needs them. This proactive approach reduces the number of real-time queries to the search engine, thereby reducing bandwidth consumption and server load while ensuring information is available when needed.
3Loss of energy
If screen readers provide only basic link information, then resource consumption is reduced, but users cannot navigate ambiguous links effectively
Solution Approach 1:
The search engine acts as a mediator that provides on-demand contextual information about ambiguous links. Instead of providing basic information for all links (which would consume excessive resources), the system uses the search engine intermediary to retrieve detailed contextual information only when the user encounters links that need differentiation, thus maintaining navigation accuracy while conserving resources.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically adjusts the level of information provided based on user needs. When links are unambiguous, only basic information is provided. When ambiguity is detected (either through user request or system analysis), the system dynamically queries the search engine for additional contextual information, ensuring navigation reliability is maintained only when necessary rather than continuously.
Data Source
AI summary
Described herein is a screen reader system for providing contextually relevant information for ambiguous link(s). Input is received from a user requesting information about a particular link of a web page. In response to the received user input, a request for contextually relevant information regarding the particular link (e.g., page identifier) is provided to a search engine. The request can include a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the particular link. Contextually relevant information regarding the particular link is received from the search engine. The received contextually relevant information is provided (e.g., displayed and/or read) to the user in response to the received request for information.