Text transcoders are web–server systems that produce, on the fly, a text–only version
of a web page requested by a user of a browser. Although the potential benefits of text
transcoders are multifaceted and discussions on appropriateness of text transcoders to
produce accessible versions of web sites are still ongoing, at the moment the impact of
transcoded pages on disabled web users has not yet been scientifically studied.
This paper describes an experiment aimed at evaluating usability of web pages pro-
cessed by a text transcoder and used by 29 disabled persons. Results based on subjective
and objective data show how usability changes, and which results can be generalized to
a broader population.
