| 摘要 |
A method for improving the accessibility of a computer display begins with a fully laid out display containing one or more disjoint active regions and produces a (possibly hierarchical) set of active regions which are at least as accessible as the original regions and which are used as the basis of a display. If a visual display is desired, the resulting fully laid out display appears identical to the original; however, the task of positioning focus through movement requires less precise control than in the original. This is accomplished by intelligently analyzing and managing the active regions which comprise the interface. The active regions with which the process starts are disjoint and each is associated with one or more event handlers. The actions associated with the region is triggered by transferring focus to the region and causing one or more events for which handlers are present. This is typically done by positioning the cursor over the region and then clicking the mouse and/or typing one or more characters. The algorithm implemented by the invention extracts information from the relative positions of the active regions of the input display. It produces a hierarchically structured set of active regions which takes into account both the limitations of the user and the relationships among actions which are implied by the relative positions of the original active regions. The set of active regions may be realized visually or through speech (or other modalities) to communicate the information which is extracted from the display. If alternate modalities are used for presenting the information, the invention permits the information contained in the original visual/geometrical layout to be utilized in these other modalities.
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