Google News: how user-friendly is it for the blind?

Being able to read text, find out information and know about the latest news has always been a challenge for those who cannot access the printed version, such as the visually-impaired. The advent of the Web has been a big step in the right direction for blind people to obtain up-to-date information on the internet. Many portals and Web sites offer online services for up-to-date news. In this paper our aim is to evaluate how easy and rewarding it is for blind people to access this. For this purpose, we are focusing on the well-known online service provided by Google, i.e. Google News as a case study. In order to truly benefit from access to the information available on the Web, the page interface must be simple and easy to use by everyone, including people who have to use assistive technologies. In this work we analyze not only the accessibility of the service offered by Google for its News, but also in particular the usability when interacting via screen reader.