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EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing

Raman Kumar
Sara Paiva Editors

Applications
in Ubiquitous
Computing
EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication
and Computing

Series editor
Imrich Chlamtac, European Alliance for Innovation, Ghent, Belgium
Editor’s Note
The impact of information technologies is creating a new world yet not fully
understood. The extent and speed of economic, life style and social changes
already perceived in everyday life is hard to estimate without understanding the
technological driving forces behind it. This series presents contributed volumes
featuring the latest research and development in the various information engineering
technologies that play a key role in this process.
The range of topics, focusing primarily on communications and computing
engineering include, but are not limited to, wireless networks; mobile communica-
tion; design and learning; gaming; interaction; e-health and pervasive healthcare;
energy management; smart grids; internet of things; cognitive radio networks;
computation; cloud computing; ubiquitous connectivity, and in mode general
smart living, smart cities, Internet of Things and more. The series publishes a
combination of expanded papers selected from hosted and sponsored European
Alliance for Innovation (EAI) conferences that present cutting edge, global research
as well as provide new perspectives on traditional related engineering fields.
This content, complemented with open calls for contribution of book titles and
individual chapters, together maintain Springer’s and EAI’s high standards of
academic excellence. The audience for the books consists of researchers, industry
professionals, advanced level students as well as practitioners in related fields
of activity include information and communication specialists, security experts,
economists, urban planners, doctors, and in general representatives in all those
walks of life affected ad contributing to the information revolution.

About EAI
EAI is a grassroots member organization initiated through cooperation between
businesses, public, private and government organizations to address the global
challenges of Europe’s future competitiveness and link the European Research
community with its counterparts around the globe. EAI reaches out to hundreds of
thousands of individual subscribers on all continents and collaborates with an insti-
tutional member base including Fortune 500 companies, government organizations,
and educational institutions, provide a free research and innovation platform.
Through its open free membership model EAI promotes a new research and inno-
vation culture based on collaboration, connectivity and recognition of excellence by
community.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/15427

Raman Kumar • Sara Paiva
Editors

Applications in Ubiquitous
Computing
Editors
Raman Kumar Sara Paiva
Department of Computer Science Inst Politécnico de Viana do Castelo
and Engineering Viana do Castelo, Portugal
I. K. Gujral Punjab Technical University
Kapurthala, Punjab, India

ISSN 2522-8595 ISSN 2522-8609 (electronic)

EAI/Springer Innovations in Communication and Computing
ISBN 978-3-030-35279-0 ISBN 978-3-030-35280-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35280-6

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
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The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
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This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

In recent years, there has been an increasing focus on applications in ubiquitous

computing including the theories, methodologies, and techniques underlying this
evolving field as well as its potential use in various domains across the entire
spectrum of sciences (natural science, health science, engineering, social science,
and humanities) and in various types of businesses. Applications in the field of
ubiquitous computing have yet to achieve their full potential but are projected to
play a major role in the development of successful future advances in ubiquitous
systems.
Applications in Ubiquitous Computing is an edited book that contains contribu-
tions from various experienced professionals. Topics range from the foundations
of ubiquitous computing to examples of its use across multiple disciplines. The
book enables scientists, scholars, engineers, professionals, policy-makers, and
government and nongovernment organizations to share new developments in theory,
analytical and numerical simulation and modelling, experimentation, demonstra-
tion, advanced deployment and case studies, results of laboratory or field opera-
tional tests, and ongoing developments with relevance to advances in ubiquitous
computing.
The book is divided into 2 parts comprising of 12 chapters.
The first part includes chapters that primarily focus on the applications in ubiq-
uitous computing, and the second part includes chapters that primarily demonstrate,
through detailed studies and cases, how advances in ubiquitous computing can be
used (and is already in use).
This book can benefit researchers, advanced students, as well as practitioners.
The collection of papers in the book can inspire future researchers – in particular,
researchers interested in interdisciplinary research. The rich interdisciplinary con-
tents of the book can be of interest to faculty, research communities, and researchers
and practitioners from diverse disciplines who aspire to create new and innovative
research initiatives and applications. The book aims to inspire researchers and
practitioners from different research backgrounds regarding new research directions
and application domains within ubiquitous computing.

v
vi Preface

We wish to thank all the people who contributed to this edited book – the authors
for their insightful contributions, the reviewers for their suggestions that ensured the
quality of the individual parts, and, last but not least, the EAI/Springer team for their
continuous support throughout the project. Without this joint effort, this book would
not have been possible.

Kapurthala, Punjab, India Raman Kumar

Viana do Castelo, Portugal Sara Paiva
Contents

Part I Ubiquitous Applications

The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing
in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
R. Udendhran and G. Yamini
Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All (A4A): A Step to Determine
the Understandability and Accessibility of Websites . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Ranjit Singh and Abid Ismail
How Artificial Intelligence Can Undermine Security: An Overview
of the Intellectual Property Rights and Legal Problems Involved . . . . . . . . . . 37
Praveen Kumar Gupta, Deepali Venkatesh Prasanna,
and Shreeya Sai Raghunath
Design of a Low-Cost Sensor-Based IOT System for Smart Irrigation . . . . 59
Kunal Singh and Raman Kumar
An Overview of Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) as
a Computational Tool and Its Applications in Public Health . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Praveen Kumar Gupta, Abijith Trichur Ramachandran,
Anusha Mysore Keerthi, Preshita Sanjay Dave, Swathi Giridhar,
Shweta Sudam Kallapur, and Achisha Saikia

Part II Natural Language Processing

Dynamic Mode Decomposition and Its Application in Various
Domains: An Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
S. Akshay, K. P. Soman, Neethu Mohan, and S. Sachin Kumar
Resolving Polysemy in Malayalam Verbs Using Context Similarity . . . . . . . 133
S. N. Mohan Raj, S. Sachin Kumar, S. Rajendran, and K. P. Soman

vii
viii Contents

A Clustering-Based Optimized Stable Election Protocol in Wireless

Sensor Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Samayveer Singh
Feature Selection Is Important: State-of-the-Art Methods
and Application Domains of Feature Selection on
High-Dimensional Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
G. Manikandan and S. Abirami
Ontological Structure-Based Retrieval System for Tamil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
S. Rajendran, K. P. Soman, Anandkumar M, and C. Sankaralingam
Machine Translation System for Translation of Malayalam
Morphological Causative Constructions into English Periphrastic
Causative . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
T. K. Bijimol, John T. Abraham, and D. Jyothi Ratnam
Hybrid Machine Translation System for the Translation of Simple
English Prepositions and Periphrastic Causative Constructions
from English to Hindi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
D. Jyothi Ratnam, K. P. Soman, T. K. Bijimol, M. G. Priya,
and B. Premjith

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265
 Part I
Ubiquitous Applications
The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things
and Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare

R. Udendhran and G. Yamini

1 Explosive Growth of Internet of Things

and Ubiquitous Computing

IoT and ubiquitous computing in healthcare can therefore be considered an impor-

tant life-saving technology in the healthcare domain, which is predominantly
employed for gathering data from the bedside devices, viewing patient information,
as well as diagnosing in real time the entire system of patient care [1].
Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) is characterized by the use of small, net-
worked and portable computer products in the form of smart phones, personal
digital assistants and embedded computers built into many devices, resulting in a
world in which each person owns and uses many computers [2]. The consequences
include enhanced computing by making computers available throughout everyone’s
daily life while those computers themselves and their interaction are ‘invisible’
to the users. The term ‘invisible’ in this context is used to mean the interaction
between the computer and the user in a more natural manner such as speech and
physical interaction, with the computer itself automatically capturing its external
parameters while concurrently communicating with other computers [3]. UbiComp
proposes many minute, wireless computers that can monitor their environments,
and communicate and react to monitored parameters. However, the challenge which
prevails in healthcare is that it causes loss of data and even fault in diagnosis and
most of the confidential healthcare data are stored in cloud [4]. Even a minute
in treating patients is life-saving; therefore doctors should save precious minutes,

R. Udendhran () · G. Yamini

Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Bharathidasan University, Trichy, India

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 3

R. Kumar, S. Paiva (eds.), Applications in Ubiquitous Computing, EAI/Springer
Innovations in Communication and Computing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35280-6_1
4 R. Udendhran and G. Yamini

which can be done by employing the monitoring of medical assets and less manual
visiting each patient through remote diagnosis IoT and ubiquitous computing
enabled remote diagnosis [5].
The advancements in healthcare are not implemented in developing countries
because of the poor healthcare infrastructure [6].
The solution for this problem is to integrate health-sensing devices with portable
devices such as smart phones and deploy them in the cloud. By following this
technique, poor people can make use of healthcare by employing smart phones
which are cheap these days [7].
However, healthcare should enhance the reliability by deploying real-time
monitoring for patients and analysing patient data by providing smart healthcare
monitoring devices since IoT has turned into an effective communication paradigm.
Most of our daily life has become part of the internet because of its faster
communication as well as capabilities. It is estimated that by 2020, more than 90%
of the healthcare industry will integrate the IoT technology, which will in return
enhance the efficiency of healthcare and provide quality care in the modern society
[8–10]. Another compelling reason for adapting IoT technology in healthcare is
that there is increase in the number of patients, which leads to a smaller number
of doctors. Hence, most of the diagnostics are delayed because of this reason
since it is time-consuming and even patients ignore diagnostics because of the
expense and rely on the doctors. Many health problems are not detected because
of non-availability of doctors as well as not accessing the healthcare systems. The
only solution to this problem is to integrate healthcare with the IoT for real-time
monitoring of every patient as well as analysing the data and providing real-time
healthcare [11, 12].
Generally, the sensors employed in healthcare are used for real-time monitoring
of patients and such devices are termed IoT-driven sensors [13, 14]. These types of
sensors are deployed for patients in serious condition because of the non-invasive
monitoring; for instance, the physiological status of patients will be monitored by
the IoT-driven sensors that gather physiological information regarding the patient
through gateways. This information is later analysed by the doctors and then stored
in cloud, which enhances the quality of healthcare and lessens the cost burden to
the patient [15]. The working principle of IoT in remote health monitoring systems
is that it tracks the vital signs of the patient in real time and if the vital signs are
abnormal, then it acts based on the problem in the patient and notifies the doctor
for further analysis [16]. The IoT-driven sensor is attached to the patient, which
transmits the data regarding the vital signs from the patient’s location and employing
a telecom network with a transmitter to a hospital which consists of a remote
monitoring system that reads the incoming data about the patient’s vital signs.
In some cases, the sensor will be implanted into patient’s body which transmits
data electronically [17]. This confidential information will be encrypted and then
decrypted for further analysis when the need arises [18].
The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare 5

Implantable
Transceiver
Pill Camera
Internet of Things

Physician

Fig. 1 Deployment of ubiquitous computing and IoT-driven sensors with oxygen saturation
monitoring

2 Integrating Ubiquitous Computing and IoT-Driven

Sensors with Rehabilitation Systems

A community-based smart rehabilitation system is employed for sharpening as well

as rejuvenating the functional abilities that enhance the physiological care [19].
These systems should interact conveniently apportioning the medical resources
based on the requirements of the patient employing the IoT-based rehabilitation
system with an ontology-based automating technique, as shown in Fig. 1.
The pulse oximeter or an oxygen saturation device is used to monitor and
analyse the patient’s oxygen saturation following a non-invasive pattern [20] [21].
These devices were costly before the advent of IoT devices which led to many
advancements in medical sensors as well as wireless networks because of less
consumption of power [22]. The IoT-based pulse oximeter is deployed for medical
applications that determine the blood oxygen levels as well as the heart rate with the
help of sensors connected to patient’s body [23].

3 Research Gap in Integrating Ubiquitous Computing

and Intelligent Healthcare

So far, it has been said that the combination of healthcare with the information
system falls under the category of healthcare information system. Moreover, in
the present scenario, certain domains, such as Ubiquitous Computing, Big Data,
Cloud Computing, M-Commerce, etc., also play a major role in this field. They
form an integrated part of the healthcare organization systems [24]. Various studies
6 R. Udendhran and G. Yamini

had adapted the healthcare information systems. Several researchers have followed
the information system and they had developed this information system in many
healthcare institutions and showed their benefits to the wide range of stakeholders
[25]. The basic functionality of this information system was explained in [26], along
with the implementation and the adoption phase.
However, only a limited number of researches had focused on the selection
of healthcare information system (HIS) that seems to be in the initial stage of
implementation, which is found to be a research gap [27]. The determined research
gap is mentioned in Fig. 2.
It is essential to select an appropriate healthcare information system, as shown in
the figure. If little care is taken in choosing the healthcare information system, then
as a result it may not fit the particular institution and they would have to perform
certain unnecessary functions such as having resource waste in the institution with
the decrease in efficiency [28].
There are various classifications under the healthcare information system, and it
could be very easy to choose a classification system based on our requirement. How-
ever, the situation is the other way around because there is no unique categorization
of healthcare information system [29]. But the categories have various features that
could differ based on the categorization that could make the selection process a little
complicated [30]. On the other hand, the classification could not be applied fully to
the HIS since they could require certain features from the modern systems and most
of them could be integrated and modular by these varying systems. At certain times,
problems could occur in choosing the system, which is said to be known as the zoo
problem. The problem that occurs from choosing an option from the wide variety

Fig. 2 Research gap in the information system

The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare 7

is said to be known as the zoo problem. This problem is very common among the
users for whom they seem to be similar. Among 240 developers, there are around
650 systems, which seemed to be a complicated one in the selection process of
Healthcare. Since all the options are found to be unique, the decision-makers tend
to get confused, so they could choose an unsuitable information system [30].

4 Benefits of Cloud Computing in Healthcare

Several benefits could be attained by integrating cloud computing with the medical
sector that drives the technology. Though there are certain difficulties, certain
developing countries like Malaysia, Ghana and South Africa have witnessed
improvement in healthcare with the cloud computing technology [31]. To enhance
the outcomes of the patients, the Cloud technology embraces the healthcare that
forms a great answer to all healthcare organizations. The interaction takes place
among the patients, doctors and the Information and Communications Technology
(ICT) environment through the internet to the cloud [32]. This process starts with
the patients and their visit to the doctor who makes a verification of the patient’s
details in the eHealth (Cloud) system. The doctor analyses the patient’s health with
the details provided and offers certain medicines for their health with the possible
medication. Through this system, the interactions could be very quick and the details
of the patients could once again be updated in the cloud environment [33]. In the
world of healthcare, cloud computing is said to be an emerging technology and
seems to be very effective, when compared to the current health-based information
storage systems [34].
The quick development of the device, wireless and cloud computing technologies
alters a wise healthcare that supports the consistent remote watching on the physical
conditions of patients, older individuals or babies, and the efficient process of the
massive sensing knowledge sets. Such a smart healthcare will enhance the standard
of life significantly [35]. However, as investigated by the Cloud Standards Customer
Council, the healthcare institutions do not seem to be keen on building sensible
healthcare systems supported by the IT, particularly in developing countries. The
underutilization of IT prevents the wide information sharing and processing in the
healthcare industry [36]. Cloud computing paradigms alter a virtual mechanism
for IT resource management and usage. Sensor-cloud infrastructure could be a
technology that integrates cloud techniques into the wireless sensor networks
(WSNs). It provides users a virtual platform for utilizing the physical sensors in
a clear and convenient approach. Users will manage, monitor, create and check
the distributed physical sensors while not knowing their physical details, however
simply using a few of functions. Cloud computing provides the IT resources for
WSNs that support the storage and quick process of a large amount of detector
information streams. The connection between the WSNs and clouds is enforced by
two kinds of gateways: sensor gateways and cloud gateways, where sensor gateways
collect and compress data, and cloud gateways decompress and process data.
8 R. Udendhran and G. Yamini

Sensor-clouds are utilized in various applications, like the disaster prediction,

atmosphere watching and healthcare analysis. Sensor-clouds collect knowledge
from totally different applications and share and process the information based on
the cloud computational and storage resources. An interface is provided to the users
to manage and monitor the virtual sensors. In Sensor-clouds, the sensor modelling
language (SML) is utilized to explain the data of the physical sensors which are
processed as the metadata of the sensors. The standard language format allows
the collaboration among sensors in several networks and platforms. The Extensible
Markup Language (XML) encryption additionally provides a mapping mechanism
for transforming commands and information between virtual and physical sensors.
Compared with the traditional sensor networks, Sensor-clouds have the following
advantages: (1) the capability of dealing with numerous data types; (2) scalable
resources; (3) user and network collaboration; (4) data visualization; (5) data
access and resource usage; (6) low cost; (7) automated resource delivery and data
management; (8) less process and response time.

5 IoT and Ubiquitous Computing Is Expected to Drive

Growth in Intelligent Healthcare Information

Based on the effectiveness of IoT and Ubiquitous computing, an intelligent infor-

mation system is said to be the set of software and hardware that involves the
skilled people for the process of decision-making and co-ordination among the
organizations. One of the recent concepts in decision-making involves the use of
information system since it increases the facility of exchange of data among the
users. The information system is used by the people and the organization to organize
process, collect and distribute data. Through this process, quality information could
be received that helps in taking the rational decisions in order to meet the needs of
the customers.
Rational decision-making is said to be a crucial process unlike several other
sectors, which offers certain provisions to the community. Moreover, fast increase
in the medical data leads to the categorization of healthcare from the discovery of
drugs, evolution and increase in the spread of diseases, medical histories, exposure
of patients to the environment, etc. These fast-growing data are necessary to have an
effective management to increase the quality of health service delivery. The increase
in medical data had led to several challenges that had been faced by the hospitals
in managing the information systems, which is sufficiently necessary to utilize the
medical data for the rational decision-making process. The HIS had been mainly
designed in governing the operation carried out in the healthcare organizations such
as the clinic, patient registration, activities regarding the administration, financial
aspects and communication. There are several categorizations under the HIS that are
totally combined in managing the hospital administration and patient care. In this
system, healthcare data storage with the information analysis is done systematically.
The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare 9

These data collected by the HIS are classified into three main categories: (1)
clinical information that is collected during the patient’s visit to the hospital, (2)
administrative information and (3) external information. These include the data
regarding the health facilities, household surveys and administrative data, national
health accounts (NHA) and health researches and civil registrations. This could
have access to the health information system by describing the situations and
trends followed in the healthcare unit. Further, these situations could be thoroughly
analysed and could be helpful in planning facility, co-ordination and in decision-
making, as shown in Fig. 3.
Based on the type of the data and the purpose, the Healthcare Information System
(HIS) could be classified into two categories: one is the clinical HIS and the other
is the administrative HIS. On one side, it could be said that the administrative HIS
will help in supporting the management and the general activities of the healthcare
organization. It contains information regarding the finance, supplies as well as
the human source, which also contains the financial management system with the
patients’ administrative system.

Fig. 3 Interaction among the healthcare actors and with the healthcare information system (HIS)
10 R. Udendhran and G. Yamini

The employees and the patients are the important stakeholders or the participants
of the healthcare system. The employee category has been classified into two
main categories that include the administrative professionals as well as the medical
professionals. The actors of the healthcare mainly consist of the organization
or the individual, which gets an effect through the information systems. In this
case, the individuals are said to be the people who have a connection with the
information systems, for instance, administrators, clinicians, clinical students and
the technologists. These kinds of people tend to work in various organizations such
as the hospitals, pharmacy and a unit under organizations say, dispensary. Indi-
viduals Groups Organizational Human Controllers Acceptors Providers Supporters
(IGOHcaps) is said to be a unit under the healthcare actors. The actors under the
IGOHcaps could be classified into four main groups including Providers, Acceptors,
Controllers and Suppliers. The combination of the healthcare actors is mainly
appreciated, rather than separating these actors into various groups individually.
Moreover, the healthcare industry supply chain also includes several entities such
as the insurance providers, specialists, pharmacies, physicians and the medical
suppliers. Further classification of these actors tends to be based on three main
groups: suppliers (insurance providers, pharmacy and medical suppliers), patients
and physicians. This has been composed by two different authors and finally it says
that a healthcare actor can be defined as a human or organization that participates
in accepting, providing, supporting or/and controlling the healthcare service. On
the other hand, supporting the patient’s treatment and diagnosis comes under the
category of clinical HIS. The information collected in this HIS deals with the
patient’s health. Ancillary information systems and all other clinical information
systems fall under the category of clinical HIS.
The healthcare information system (HIS) forms the base for the information
exchange among the actors of the healthcare unit. The interaction among the
healthcare actors and with the healthcare information system (HIS) is shown in
the figure. There are two ways by which the exchange of information takes place:
(1) either by the patients who visit the healthcare service providers physically
(pharmacy, medical centres and insurance) or (2) they tend to search data online,
take appointments and get the medical guidance based on the obtained information.
The ICT for the healthcare service providers should function properly during the
process information exchange among the actors of the healthcare and this aspect
should be taken care of by the external IT service providers.

6 Conclusion

The quality of healthcare is necessarily important for the social stability and
economic impact on the citizens. The efficiency, quality and the cost-effectiveness
of the service seems to be the most important sector for the healthcare quality.
Liberating the society from a disease-free environment is really complimented and
therefore the cost of an effective technology in healthcare could be complicated.
The Pivotal Role of Internet of Things and Ubiquitous Computing in Healthcare 11

People who cannot afford to access the healthcare techniques could face several
contagious diseases. In order to avoid this situation, relevant choice of a cost-
efficient Information Technology (IT) platform is necessary. The use of Internet
of things and Ubiquitous computing in the field of healthcare seems to increase the
simplification and thereby enhance the provisions and the quality of healthcare.

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Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All
(A4A): A Step to Determine the
Understandability and Accessibility of
Websites

Ranjit Singh and Abid Ismail

1 Introduction

World Wide Web (WWW) is one of the important applications of the Internet that
removes the physical barrier to access services, products, and information that are
not easily obtained by PwDs because of circumstances related to their disability
for independent living and enhances their decision-making ability [60, 84]. It is
no doubt that web is an important “able-bodied” neighbor or coworker, if you
are a PwD [55]. Following the development of commercial applications, many
researchers [9, 15, 28, 68, 71] have realized the potential of the Internet and WWW
in tourism business and recommended for incorporating them into the travel and
tourism industry. The incorporation of the Internet has revolutionized the travel and
tourism business and is also significant for the growth and success of the industry
[11, 13, 29, 62]. It is still continued.
Tourism is an information consumption industry, and WWW is able to serve
that information over the Internet to the user for decision-making regarding tourism
[9, 10, 59, 62]. With the development of Web 2.0, online users are empowered
through technology [52, 53]. It is a tool of mass collaboration because it allows
users to actively participate and collaborate with other users to produce, consume
and diffuse the knowledge and information on tourism being distributed over the
Internet [61, 65, 66]. The online travel agencies (OTAs) are one of the applications
of the Internet in the tourism industry, and their websites hold the majority share of

R. Singh
Department of Tourism Studies, School of Management, Pondicherry University, Puducherry,
India
A. Ismail ()
Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Technology, Pondicherry
University, Puducherry, India

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 13

R. Kumar, S. Paiva (eds.), Applications in Ubiquitous Computing, EAI/Springer
Innovations in Communication and Computing,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35280-6_2
14 R. Singh and A. Ismail

the travel agency business and continue to witness huge growth by 2025 [86]. They
are making the travel simple and personalized for everyone. The major advantage
of OTAs is booking an entire trip in one sitting, finding the best bargaining price,
discovering travel inspiration, getting a glimpse of your travel, and sealing the deal
anytime [58]. Online travel market places become more competitive due to the
entry of new OTAs in the market and are increasingly adopting e-business model to
accomplish their organizational goals [42]. Therefore, maintaining an effective and
customized website has thus become imperative for OTAs to strengthen its customer
relationships, win a larger market segment and serve small niche market segment
like accessible tourism.
Website of OTAs is one of the dominant sources of information for the accessible
tourism consumers with different access needs which empowers the disabled people
to search for, find, plan, compare, bargain, book travel, and tourism experiences
online and give feedback after using the products. Accessible tourism consumers
are a growing niche market segment of tourism with full of opportunities and
challenges. As per findings, the average yearly expenditure of consumers on tourism
is EUR 80 billion in Europe, USD 13.6 billion in the USA, and AUD 1.3 billion
in Australia [76]. It shows the potential of accessible tourism to contribute toward
the economy. However, the market is underperforming due to different types of
environmental barriers (planning and booking, infrastructure and transportation,
building, communication and activities involving destination) and social barriers
(lack of awareness about accessibility, lack of training, and tourism-related business
and attitudinal barriers) [76]. From the aforementioned barriers, lack of access to
information through the website is a major barrier for accessible tourism because
information is the lifeblood of tourism [62]. Most of the tourism websites have
failed to address the issue of information accessibility through their website toward
PwDs [22, 79].
Understanding the needs of the online users with or without disability translates
to the success of tourism websites, and it is of utmost importance to the tourism
and hospitality organization [41]. Accessibility and readability issues in tourism
websites are imperative for both travel and tourism industry and accessible tourism
consumers. Accessible OTA websites can make a difference in the highly competi-
tive tourism market as such websites will entice more customers, especially PwDs,
providing better opportunities to create direct relationships with the consumer and
loyalty in the long run for the OTAs. However, the accessibility and readability of
OTA websites are still questionable and yet to unearth due to the importance of
OTAs in accessible tourism. Hence, it is imperative to examine the accessibility and
readability of OTA websites toward the commitment of accessible tourism.
Thus, the aim of this study is to provide an in-depth understanding of web
accessibility and web readability toward accessible tourism from the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C) guideline perspective. For this, web accessibility of 35
OTA websites belonging to three international corporations has been checked by
applying online open access tools, namely, AChecker, WAVE, and Tenon, and their
understandability performance through six different readability indices. In addition,
ranking has been performed in terms of accessibility and readability violation scores
Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All (A4A) 15

along with site visiting ranking by Alexa ranking tool. Therefore, this research
finding would be of great interest to many organizations to embody an open,
welcoming, and inclusive environment for PwDs to carry out optimal tourism
experiences and boost their universality of the web for all.

2 Objectives

The following are the main objectives of this study:

1. To determine the web accessibility score of 35 OTA websites in terms of WCAG
2.0 guidelines.
2. To produce the readability score of OTA websites by applying six different
indices.
3. To describe the relevance of web accessibility and readability of OTA websites
on accessible tourism.
4. To rank the websites based on the accessibility and readability score and compare
the rank with site visiting ranking.
5. To check performance among the three international corporations in terms of
testing techniques used.

3 Literature Review

3.1 Online Travel Agency

The Internet has been widely accepted by the tourism researchers that it can serve
a valuable tool for the promotion and distribution of travel- and tourism-related
experience of customers [11, 16, 17, 70, 87].
It is a valuable online platform for both consumers and suppliers for the dissemi-
nation of information, communication, and online purchasing of product and service
related to the destination without any geographical and time constraint [42, 48, 72].
Websites have developed into one of the leading points of supply of information for
tourism and hospitality, since they produce details about transportations, holiday
packages, and hotels of a destination. Due to the growing use of websites for
purchasing travel-related products, the online travel industry is forecasted to reach
$1,091 billion by 2022, and the major booking source for the user includes websites
of direct travel suppliers and websites of OTAs [7].
Tourism academic researcher has added accessibility is an important criteria of
OTAs for service quality (E-QUAL) to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty
in the travel and tourism industry [39]. More importantly, accessibility is a critical
criteria to measure the quality of websites for OTAs [38, 49]. High-quality websites
can entice more consumers than low-quality websites [56, 85, 94].
16 R. Singh and A. Ismail

Considering the importance of accessibility of OTA websites in travel planning

and booking, it should be expected from the OTAs that equal chances and opportu-
nity must be met especially by PwDs due to their access needs without any digital
divide. Nevertheless, to be easy to access those features, it would be reasonable
that PwDs should be able to access the e-distribution, an issue that has not been
addressed by travel and tourism industry as a whole [46].
The Internet has made the users independent in planning their trips, since it
provides updated and detailed information related to a destination for their decision-
making by sitting at one place [10]. In the recent two decades, the quantity of studies
on the importance of information for PwDs has increased [12, 18, 24]; however, no
further understanding has been achieved into the significance of OTA websites from
functionality perspective, that is, evaluating the accessibility and readability of the
website. Therefore, it is necessary to research on the readability and accessibility
of OTA websites, to remove the barriers by providing accessible information of the
tourism products readily available.

3.2 Accessible Tourism

More than a billion of people are estimated to experience some form of disability,
and the prevalence of disability is high in developing countries [92]. The number
is going to increase because population are aging and there is a global increase in
chronic health issues associated with disability, such as cardiovascular diseases, dia-
betes, and mental illness. The International Classification of Functioning, Disability
and Health (ICF) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
(CRPD) highlighted the major barriers of disability that are widespread in the
environment which include inadequate policy and standard, negative attitude, lack
of provision of service, problems with the service delivery, inadequate funding, lack
of accessibility, lack of evidence and data, and lack of consultation and involvement
[73, 92].
Due to the growing level of social integration and economic condition, PwDs are
participating in tourism activities frequently [75]. Consequently, tourism researchers
have reported that the market of accessible tourism has a big opportunity for the
travel and tourism organizations having extensive growth and future possibilities [4,
8, 14, 19]. A substantial amount of research has been done to capture the accessible
tourism market and its barrier from both demand and supply sides of tourism [6,
57, 67]. Although different steps are taken to make tourism accessible for everyone
especially PwDs, access to information through websites is a prominent issue in the
travel and tourism industry for disabled people [22, 89]. Majority of the tourism
websites are not accessible and are not following the WCAG guideline [25, 46, 79].
Therefore, creating accessible websites should be one of the basic elements in the
development of accessible tourism.
Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All (A4A) 17

3.3 Web Accessibility

Web accessibility is defined as the websites, tools, and technologies that are
designed and developed so that PwDs can perceive, operate, navigate, and interact
with the web [83]. Hence, the effect of disability completely changed on the web as
it eliminates barriers to communication that many people encounter in the physical
world. However, when applications and websites are poorly designed, they can
create barriers for the inclusion of people from using the website. Accessibility
is important for organizations that want to create an optimal website and include
people for using services and products. But it is rarely found in the tourism and
hospitality industry [22, 63, 91].
Web accessibility for PwDs is a growing field of research in human-computer
interaction [2, 20, 26, 35, 64]. In education and government field, a plethora of
research on web accessibility has been conducted by different researchers due to
its importance for disabled people [3, 30, 32–34, 36, 37]. They used different online
automatic tools like AChecker, WAVE, TAW, Cynthia Says, readFX, etc. for the
evaluation process of websites. However, in tourism scholarship marginal research
has been conducted on web accessibility mostly confined to websites of destina-
tion marketing organizations (DMOs), websites of national tourist organizations
(NTOs), and hotel websites based on WCAG 1.0, undermining the relevance of OTA
websites in accessible tourism [22, 44, 50, 63, 89, 91]. Not only web accessibility but
also web readability determines the success of the tourism websites for promoting
accessible tourism, which is always disregarded by the tourism researchers [63].
Web accessibility is not a new concept in tourism and hospitality industry, but
the research is limited mostly on the online tool Bobby with guideline WCAG 1.0
[27, 63, 91, 93]. For the web accessibility of US airline online reservation websites,
when assessed with Bobby online, it was found that out of 73 websites, only 3
passed the initial test for accessibility, more than 75% sites contains 3 or more errors,
and the most prominent error was alternative text to all images [27]. Not only US
airline reservation websites but also Visitor Information Centers (VIC) websites of
Queensland, Australia, fails to provide a text equivalent for each image in the main
web page when assessed with priority level 1 of WCAG 1.0 through Bobby online
[63]. Despite various rules and regulations, most of the developed countries’ hotel
websites such as in the UK, the USA, and Australia were inaccessible for PwDs
and failed to one or more checkpoints of WCAG [46, 88, 90, 91]. In addition, in
websites of tourism promotion organization, national airlines, lodging and hotels,
tour operators, and travel agencies of developing countries such as in Uganda,
South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe when tested by using LIFT and Bobby online
with WCAG 1.0 guidelines, it was reported that 92% of websites were missing
alternatives to visual and audio content and 67% of websites failed to address the
issue of dynamic content in the website [44].
In 2004, researchers [89] tested the accessibility of 100 German and UK tourism-
related websites and found that the home page of 10 UK and 10 German websites
was barrier-free regarding priority 1 checkpoints, only 3 German websites passed
18 R. Singh and A. Ismail

the priority 2 checkpoints, and 2 UK and 1 German website passed the priority
checkpoints of WCAG 1.0 [89]. Xiong et al. [93] expanded the accessibility test
of websites by adding both WCAG 1.0 and Section 508 guidelines for measuring
accessibility. The study found that websites had poor level of accessibility, and
the majority of the websites failed in providing alternative text for the non-text
element. Oertel et al. [50] assessed the accessibility of 16 official national tourist
organization websites of the European Union. The research found that none of these
websites met first priority of WCAG 1.0, and the websites even lack of basic and
easy checkpoints, for instance, alternative text, clear navigation mechanism, etc.
The official tourism website of Denmark was more accessible, and the website
deliberately refrained from time-dependent elements.
Recently due to the development of online tools based on WCAG 2.0 and WCAG
2.1 guidelines, some research has measured the web accessibility of NTOs on the
basis of WCAG 2.0 guidelines [21, 22, 79]. In the websites of official NTOs of
countries registered in the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO),
when tested by using TAW in terms of conformance level AA and AAA of WCAG
2.0, it was found that South Korea, Hong Kong, and Japan are following the good
practice of accessibility as compared to other countries. They can serve as an
example for other countries regarding accessibility [79]. Vila et al. [21] tested the
accessibility of 190 websites of official NTOs around the world. The study found
that the number of problems in success criteria was 2051, the number of warning
in success criteria was 8096, and the number of not reviewed in success criteria
was 188 for conformance level AA, and the number of problems in success criteria
was 2038, the number of warning in success criteria was 6927, and the number of
not reviewed in success criteria was 191 for conformance level AAA of WCAG 2.0
[21]. Besides this, another study is conducted to examine the web accessibility of
Northern European countries’ tourism websites by the same author, by applying the
same TAW tool and conformance level AA of WCAG 2.0. The study reported 2319
total problems, 9644 total warnings, and 379 total not reviewed. The websites of
Norway had the maximum number of incidents, and websites of Belgium had the
least number of incidents [22].

3.4 Web Readability

Readability is how easily a reader can read and understand the words, sentences,
written text, and style of writing [23]. It is based on the principles of legibility,
familiarity, complexity, and typography of a sentence. Readability is measured
through readability score by applying different readability indices available. Read-
ability score tells the level of education required to understand a piece of text. The
most commonly used readability formulas to measure readability include Flesch-
Kincaid Reading Ease (FKRE), Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL), Gunning Fog
Score, Coleman-Liau Index (CLI), Automated Readability Index (ARI), and SMOG
Index. These formulas test the readability based on the words, sentences, syllables,
Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All (A4A) 19

average sentence length, percentage of hard words, and characters in a sentence. The
readability analysis of 75 Australian and New Zealand tourism websites was tested
by using the above tools, and it was found out that it is an issue for the older age
people to understand the text of the websites, and the grade level is high (difficult
to read) [43]. Researchers [32, 34, 51], etc. used these aforementioned readability
indices to find the grade level and understandability of texts in websites. Similarly,
we have also used these readability indices in our study to find the grading cum
understandability scores of 35 OTA websites.
Based on the review of literature, there is a need to focus on accessibility and
readability of tourism websites regarding different corporations and to find their
bonding strengths between the parameters of accessibility, readability, and site
visiting status of OTA websites belonging to international corporations.

4 Methodology

4.1 Data Collection Method

Based on operation around the globe findings [69], three major US travel inter-
national corporations, namely, Booking Holdings Inc.,1 Expedia Group Inc.,2 and
TripAdvisor Inc.,3 are used in this study. A total of 35 OTA websites collected from
each corporation having individual brands on their global website consists of 14,
16, and 4 websites of Expedia Group, TripAdvisor, and Booking Holdings Incs.,
respectively.

4.2 Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG)

WCAG is a technical document on standards of web accessibility developed by

the Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (AGWG).4 AGWG is a part of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). W3C
WAI develops support materials and standards to help organization and individual
for understanding and implementing accessibility. W3C WAI resources are used to
make applications, websites, and other digital creations more accessible and usable
to everyone. W3C WAI combines people from disability organization, government,
industry, and research laboratory from around the globe to develop resources and
guidelines to make the web accessible to people with neurological, cognitive,

1 https://www.bookingholdings.com/
2 https://www.expediagroup.com/
3 https://www.tripadvisor.com
4 https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/
20 R. Singh and A. Ismail

auditory, speech, physical, and visual disabilities [83]. WCAG is developed in

cooperation with organizations and individuals around the globe with an objective of
creating and providing a standard of web content accessibility that satisfies the needs
of governments, individuals, and organizations internationally. WCAG explains how
to make web content more accessible to PwDs. Web content usually refers to the
information in a web application or web page containing markup or code that
defines presentation, structure, etc. and natural information such as images, text,
and sounds. WCAG is primarily designed for web accessibility evaluation tools
for developers, web authoring tool developers, web content developers, and others
who need or want a standard for web accessibility including mobile accessibility.
There are different versions of WCAG available, namely, WCAG 1.0, WCAG 2.0,
and WCAG 2.1.
1. WCAG 1.0 was published in May 1999. It included 14 guidelines and 65
checkpoints. Each checkpoint has a priority (P) levels, namely, P1, P2, and
P3, authorized by the working group on the basis of checkpoint’s impact
on accessibility [40]. In addition, there are three levels of conformance in
WCAG 1.0 document including Conformance Level “A”, all P1 checkpoints are
satisfied; Conformance Level “AA”, all P1 and P2 checkpoints are satisfied; and
Conformance Level “AAA”, all P1, P2, and P3 checkpoints are satisfied [80].
2. WCAG 2.0 was published by W3C in December 2008. It succeeds WCAG 1.0. It
was launched due to some shortfalls in WCAG 1.0 including some checkpoints
that has been obsoleted because of development in technology for PwDs, moving
from specific technology to technology independently, and reorganizing and
improving accessibility guidelines to enhance accessibility [40]. It encompasses
a wide range of suggestions and recommendations to make the web content
and application more accessible. It will also address the issue of accessibility
to a wide range of disabled people including learning disabilities, cognitive
limitation, deafness and hear loss, limited movement, blindness and low vision,
photosensitivity and combination of these. WCAG 2.0 not only improves the
accessibility of the web content, but it also makes the web content more usable
to users.
WCAG 2.0 consists of f our principles, namely, perceivable, operable,
understandable, and robust, denoted as POUR. Under these principles, there are
12 guidelines that provide basic objectives to web content developers to make
the web content more accessible to people with different disabilities. Under each
guideline, success criteria are provided regarding three conformance levels: A
(lowest), AA (medium), and AAA (highest) [81].
3. WCAG 2.1 is an extension of WCAG 2.0, published in December 2008 as a
recommendation of W3C. Web content that conforms the guidelines of WCAG
2.1 also conforms the guidelines of WCAG 2.0 [82]. The publication of WCAG
2.1 is not to supersede WCAG 2.0, while W3C recommends WCAG 2.0. The
W3C advises using standards of WCAG 2.1 to maximize the accessibility efforts
and also encourages to use the current version of WCAG. WCAG 2.1 was
initiated with an objective to enhance accessibility guidance for three major
Easy to Read (E2R) and Access for All (A4A) 21

groups, namely, users with disabilities on mobile devices, users with cognitive
or learning disabilities, and users with low vision. It expands WCAG 2.0
by including new success criteria, definitions to support the success criteria,
guidelines to organize the additional success criteria, and a couple of additions to
the conformance section. This additional success criterion helps to make it clear
that websites which conform to the success criteria of WCAG 2.1 also conform
to the success criteria of WCAG 2.0 [82].

4.3 Tools and Techniques Used

There are different tools and techniques used for checking the accessibility status
of websites based on the World Wide Web Consortium website.5 These tools
and techniques are based on different versions such as WCAG 1.0, 2.0, and
2.1, Section 508, etc. of accessibility guidelines and standards. Among them,
some tools are open access and some are paid. But, we used open access tools
based on WCAG 1.0 and 2.0, namely, AChecker, WAVE, and Tenon, for the
evaluation process of 35 websites belonging to aforementioned three international
corporations. The working snapshots of AChecker, WAVE, and Tenon tools are
shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3, respectively. In addition, the study used the online
WebFX tool6 to test the readability cum grade level means easy to read (E2R)

Fig. 1 A working snapshot of AChecker tool

5 https://www.w3.org/WAI/ER/tools/
6 https://www.webfx.com/tools/read-able/, a full-service digital market agency.
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