An International Comparison of Web browsing assistance features of the libraries for the people with visually impaired in Japan and the U.S.

Abstract

In these days, the applications of virtual spaces such as 3DCG and the Metaverse has been remarkable. And the many sighted have benefited from them. Although, it is so difficult for the people with visually impaired to use these vision dependent services. The information provided by the libraries for the people with visually impaired needs to be accessible to all of people. The Web browsing assistance features provide Web browsing assistance to a variety of people. Therefore, we report that an international comparison between Japan and the U.S., focusing on Web browsing assistance features. A number of Web site of libraries for the people with visually impaired is 97 in Japan, and U.S. is 93. Those libraries supply the services for the people with visually impaired. Those percentages indicate higher in Japan than in U.S., at least. Particularly, there are many features to change character size and color scheme in Japan, while many them to change fonts and foreign languages in U.S. There are many variations in color schemes including changes in text color in Japan. On the other hand, the text color is almost black and the variation of background color is more than Japan, in U.S.