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Aurora: A Conceptual Model for Web-content Adaptation to Support the Universal Accessibility of Web-based Services. Anita W. Huang, Neel Sundaresan Presented by Allan Spale – EECS 578. Introduction. The World Wide Web is a place for information and commerce - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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Aurora: A Conceptual Model for Web-content Adaptation
to Support the Universal Accessibility of Web-based
ServicesAnita W. Huang, Neel Sundaresan
Presented by Allan Spale – EECS 578
Introduction
• The World Wide Web is a place for information and commerce
• Electronic information distribution removes previous accessibility barriers– Flexible presentation of information
• The use of HTML on web pages removes its meaning and functionality
Problems Using HTML
• Makes “comprehension, navigation, and input difficult or completely impossible”– Literal content
– Services
Improving Web Accessibility
• Low-level accessibility– Provide alternatives to different media
types
• High-level accessibility– Make Web services in a service domain
accessible to a large audience
Description of Aurora• Aurora provides high-accessibility
– Analyzes web objects according to their functions within a particular domain of Web pages
– Based on a transaction model• Provides a framework for encapsulating
general goals within a service domain• “[P]rovides a set of schemas that describes
how a user obtains the identified services”
Transaction Model and XML
• Converts web data in service domains into XML
• XML data is input to interface adaptors
• Each interface adaptor creates the new Web page
User Scenario• Blind user visits an on-line auction site• Semantic obstacles appear on the page
to “hide” information necessary to make a bid– Aurora can improve this situation
• Access the site using Aurora• Aurora will render the page in a format
acceptable to the user
Electronic Information Accessibility
• Web Accessibility– “…add provisions to existing Web pages.”
– Focus on low-level issues• Provide alternate presentation forms for
different electronic media
Electronic Information Accessibility
• Adaptive Hypermedia– Offers adaptive measures for “new Web-
based information systems”
– Challenges• Incorporating each user’s goals into a user
model
• Structuring of information to permit translation across presentation formats
Electronic Information Accessibility
• Wrapper generation– Wrapper applications have two roles
• Extract information from data
• Reorganize the data into structured forms
Aurora’s Transaction Model• Specifies the user’s abstract goals
• “Scrapes” information from the Web page relevant to the user goals
• Relevant to a specific service domain– Common services
– Sequences of tasks to receive services
– Declaration of specific steps to accomplish tasks
Transaction Model Specifics
• Services– Analyze a service domain to determine “a
discrete, common set of abstract user goals”
• Transactions– Tasks to be done to receive a service
Transaction Model Specifics
• Task Hierarchical Work-Flow Model– Create a node for each step
– Connect the nodes according to sequences of steps
– Label transitions between nodes where appropriate
Web Content Classification
• Transaction model tracks each page’s function in relation to the user goal– Model applies to sets of web pages
• Transaction model used to transform content without altering Web pages
• Can provide additional structure to data at the source
Benefits for Universal Usability
• Consistency– Currently web sites differ in many ways
from one another
– Transaction model reduces this problem• Consistent interface
• “[M]odel specifies a common set of goal-orientated transactions for each service domain”
Benefits for Universal Usability
• Simplicity– Web pages usually contain some irrelevant
information in relation to user goals
– Solution• “Scrape” information from the Web page
according to the transaction model that encapsulates the user goal
Benefits for Universal Accessibility
• Adaptability– Semantic information is implicit according
to its appearance
– Solution• Use a transaction model to extract functional
semantics and add semantic markup
• Interface adaptors take output from transaction model to create presentations for a user group
XML Framework• eXtensible Markup Language used for
creating structured data• The transaction model that maps web
objects can be stored using a DTD (Document Type Definition)
• XML data will maintain the functional semantics which will allow interface adaptation
Using DTDs for Translation Schemas
• Describe abstract tasks for every service goal
• Contains the semantics and sequence of task steps
• Together with the “scraped” web page data, Aurora can write the transaction document in XML
Operation of AuroraUsing XML
• User requests a Web page
• Aurora downloads Web page and recreates the page– Downloads the web page
– Extracts information and objects
– Creates XML document using a DTD
• Aurora uses the interface adaptor on the XML document to create the new HTML page
Example of User-Aurora Interaction
• User views Aurora-generated Web page of an auction site converted from XML to be displayed in HTML– This is a node in the current transaction
document– Current node is the item for bidding– Hyperlinks in the generated HTML page
lead to other nodes in the XML document
Example of User-Aurora Interaction
• User selects a hyperlink– Each XML hyperlink will link to a Web page
and a transformation rule
– Aurora will download the web page and apply the transformation rule
– A hyperlink links to a downloaded HTML document and the extracted XML segment
Example of User-Aurora Interaction
• Present the downloaded page to the user– XML segment serves as input to the interface
adaptor
– Aurora will use the XML segment as input to the interface adaptor
– The result is a displayable web page typically in HTML
• The process repeats for future interactions
Aurora’s Method ofContent Extraction
• Uses PatML* XML transformation tool that…match[es] and
transform[s] patterns in XML documents– Three parts to a PatML transformation rule
* XML pattern to match (source)* Way to transform the matched pattern (target)* Java code block to invoke on the pattern (action)
*Items quoted directly from the paper
Aurora’s Method ofContent Extraction
• A transaction step has one PatML rule– This rule will be used for all pages on a single
Web site
• Three parts of PatML rule, specifically– Source: matches HTML tag patterns
– Target: turns matched part into an XML part
– Action: gets the XML part and returns its output
Aurora Architecture UsingWeB Intermediaries (WBI)
• “…enables applications to manipulate HTTP streams during a Web transaction.”
• Three components– Request editor
• Interface adaptor translates user actions
– Document generator• Downloads web pages, applies transformation rules to web
pages, returns XML parts
– Document editor• Interface adaptor adapts requested Web pages
Extensible Architecture• Interface Adaptors
– “[S]ends XML data and receives user responses.”
– Transforms XML data into a low-level presentation format
– DTDs used to help generate additional semantic meaning
– Two types of adaptors• HTML text-only, Icon-enhanced HTML
Extensible Architecture• Service Domains and Web Sites
– XML configuration document stores all service domain definitions
• Adding new domains or sites into a domain only involves editing the XML document
• Transcoding Engine– Aurora can use other “transcoding and/or
extraction technologies”• Currently uses PatML within its transformer interface
Implementation Details• Java plug-in for “WBI using PatML as the
transcoding tool”• Schemas include auction and search engine
service domains• PatML rules written for specific sites
– Auctions: eBay, Yahoo! Auctions– Search Engines: AltaVista, Yahoo!, Google
• Uses previously mentioned interface adaptors
Summary• Transaction Model
– Extracts semantics of web sites within selected service domains
– Uses XML to maintain structured data from Web pages
• Semantic Transcoding System– “Scrapes” and adapts web pages to help the
user accomplish abstract goals within an XML framework
Summary
• Extensible Structure– Supports custom adapters that convert
XML data into some presentation format
• Improvements– Needs “to support semi-automated or
automated rule generation and maintenance”
Resources• XML 1.0
– http://www.w3c.org/TR/REC-xml
• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0– http://www.w3c.org/wai-webcontent
• PatML– http://www.alphaworks.ibm.com/aw.nsf/techmain
/00ADAB375888BDD2882566F300703F7F?OpenDocument
• WeB Intermediaries (WBI) Development Kit– http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/wbi/doc