Accessible Web Sites can be Modeled as Oral Dialogues

This paper discusses issues concerning accessibility of interactive applications, delivered via web and/or mobile devices. The main thesis of the paper is that accessibility can’t be achieved simply by using technology, or technical tips, but it also requires a careful design, specifically oriented toward accessibility. The paper focuses on blind users and argues that applications conceived for being “listened to” need a “dialogue strategy” quite different from applications conceived for being “looked at”, and that basic research issues must also be faced, as we are trying to do in our WED (WEb as Dialogue) approach (a project developed by Politecnico di Milano and University of Italian Switzerland). The final consideration is that mobile applications put the user in “enhanced reality” situation, and therefore need new solutions for the blind users.