Second Bachelor Thesis
In my second bachelor thesis I wrote about state-of-the-art web APIs like the Text Track API, the Speech Input API, the Web Speech API or the CSS Speech Module.
Abstract:
While new web technologies are being developed and proposed nearly daily, only a small part of them has the potential to create new possibilities for physically or mentally disabled people to explore the internet. This paper takes a few selected technologies which could possibly be used for this purpose and examines them for practicability, ease of use, functionality and availability. In addition, the general state of accessibility in web development will be shortly analysed, with a special focus on WAI-ARIA. The modern web APIs that will be explored are the Text Track API, the Speech Input API, the Web Speech API and the CSS Speech Module.
At the end of this thesis, readers will have an overview of these technologies, their possibilities and their shortfalls. The Text Track API is already relatively widely supported and works well. The Speech Input API is very easy to use but has no real prospect of widespread browser support. The Web Speech API is very powerful and, although it is at the moment only supported by Google Chrome, several browser vendors have announced plans for future support. Finally, the CSS Speech Modules meets a lot of criticism and is currently not supported by any major web browser.