Open web

A vital tool in our daily lives, the Internet remains largely inaccessible to the visually impaired. Yoann Bonavero uses artificial intelligence to break down the barriers. Helping visually impaired people access the Internet: that's the aim of Yoann Bonavero's thesis, defended in November 2015.
It's a brilliant idea that meets an enormous need. In France, where one in every 100 people is visually impaired, less than 4% of government websites are accessible to the visually impaired. And the need is not confined to France: worldwide, more than 246 million people suffer from vision impairment.

Vitale canvas

Today, these people have the greatest difficulty in accessing the content offered on the web. And yet, as Yoann Bonavero points out, the Internet is becoming essential: "Access to services is increasingly via the web. The web has therefore become vital, especially for the aging, for whom it is difficult to travel to government offices".
Yoann himself is visually impaired. "My eyesight is failing, and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to access web pages properly". Admittedly, he continues, "there are tools available for adapting a workstation. But most of them are aimed at very general cases, and are impossible to parameterize according to precise needs".

Identifying useful information

There are "as many types of visual impairment as there are individuals", explains Yoann, "and there are many different pathologies, evolutions and adaptation strategies". In 2011, during a master's degree in computer science at the University of Montpellier, Yoann proposed an original thesis project. He came up with a solution based on artificial intelligence: a computer interface capable of adapting to the specificities of each visual handicap.
The challenge: to help each user identify the content on any web page that is useful to them. A real headache... all the more so as the Web doesn't do its share. The proliferation of information is only a minor obstacle. But it gets worse... Far from taking accessibility criteria into account, most sites tend to make access to content increasingly difficult...
"Information is deliberately drowned out by numerous parasitic elements," explains Yoann Bonavero: advertising pop-ups, commercial links, redundant information, sponsored links... With a little practice, an able-bodied person can find his way around. For a visually impaired person, useful information tends to become a needle in a haystack!"

Customized tool

His thesis duly completed, Yoann is nevertheless very close to the solution. "The tool uses optimization algorithms integrating the user's personalization wishes: font size, contrast level, use of colors and grayscale... It also identifies the menu, the navigation context..."
The feasibility of the project has already been demonstrated in tests. To pursue it, Yoann Bonavero has signed a one-year contract with the Laboratoire d'Informatique, de Robotique et de Microélectronique de Montpellier (Lirmm). The aim is to develop and generalize an interface that could change the lives of millions of Internet users.