Automated Script Accessibility via Dynamic Element Modification
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Solution Overview
Problem
Browser automation tools introduce accessibility challenges, such as navigation difficulties, hidden content, and user confusion, particularly for users with disabilities, due to their inability to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant elements during automated script execution.
Innovation Solution
A method that modifies content on a page by identifying and temporarily making inaccessible elements not relevant to the automated script's functionality, while inserting explanatory elements navigable by screen readers and keyboards to clarify the script's actions, thus reducing user confusion and ensuring compliance with accessibility guidelines.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Extent of automation
If automated scripts execute interactions with browser elements, then automation functionality is achieved, but user confusion and accessibility issues arise due to inability to distinguish relevant from irrelevant elements
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by making only the specific elements relevant to the automated script interaction accessible to users, while rendering other elements inaccessible. This selective accessibility approach allows automation to function while preventing user confusion about which elements are being interacted with, thus resolving the contradiction between automation extent and ease of operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent segments page elements into two distinct groups: accessible elements (those relevant to the automated script) and inaccessible elements (those not relevant). This segmentation allows the system to maintain automation functionality while clearly delineating which elements users should interact with, thereby reducing user confusion while preserving automation capabilities.
2Ease of operation
If all page elements remain accessible during script execution, then user navigation is maintained, but screen readers and keyboards read unnecessary content causing resource wastage
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts and removes accessibility from elements that are not relevant to the automated script execution. By taking out accessibility from irrelevant elements while preserving it for relevant ones, the system prevents screen readers and keyboards from reading unnecessary content, thereby conserving computing resources while maintaining user navigation capability for important elements.
3Ease of operation
If explanatory elements are inserted to describe script actions, then accessibility and user understanding improve, but page complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces explanatory elements as intermediaries between the automated script actions and the user. These intermediary elements provide descriptions of script actions in accessible formats, improving user understanding without fundamentally altering the core automation functionality. The explanatory elements act as a bridge that translates automated actions into user-comprehensible information.
Data Source
AI summary
A device may initiate an automated script to perform one or more interactions with a browser application and identify a first element in a page rendered by the browser application that satisfies one or more accessibility criteria, wherein the first element may include text that is readable by a screen reader application and/or an attribute that causes the first element to be navigable using a keyboard. The device may modify the first element to be inaccessible to the screen reader application and the keyboard and insert, into the page, a second element including text that is readable by the screen reader application to describe the one or more interactions that the automated script is performing. The client device may restore the page to an original state based on determining that the automated script has finished executing.