AccessBridge & OmniCite AI: WCAG 2.2 AAA Document Reader

Paste (Ctrl+V) any dense medical, legal, or academic document to transform it into a WCAG 2.2 AAA dyslexia-friendly, Bionic-Reading, screen-reader-optimized, citation-verified view.

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Inspiration

Every day, millions of students, patients, neurodivergent readers, and citizens are handed impenetrable walls of text—discharge summaries, legal leases, IEP accommodations, and academic papers—with only one way to interact with them: Copy (Ctrl+C) and Paste (Ctrl+V). Yet pasting dense jargon into a standard LLM often introduces dangerous hallucinations, strips away structural accessibility, and fails WCAG 2.2 AAA readability standards.

We built AccessBridge & OmniCite AI to turn a single Ctrl+V keystroke into a verified, universally accessible reading workspace: combining WCAG 2.2 AAA visual/auditory remediation with claim-by-claim NLI citation verification.

What It Does

  1. Instant Ctrl+V Multi-Modal Transformation:

    • Paste any complex medical, legal, technical, or academic document (Ctrl+V anywhere on the page or into the editor) to immediately generate four synchronized views:
      • Plain-Language Summary (5th–6th Grade Reading Level): Preserves every critical obligation, dosage, date, and action item while cutting Flesch-Kincaid complexity in half.
      • Dyslexia & Bionic Reading View: Applies custom letter/word/line spacing, high-contrast WCAG 2.2 AAA palettes (7:1+ contrast ratio), and bolded word-initial saccade anchors (**Bio**nic **Read**ing) to accelerate reading speed for ADHD and dyslexic readers.
      • Screen-Reader Semantic Outline (ARIA Landmarks + Web Speech API TTS): Automatically structures unformatted text into navigable landmarks, glossary definitions, and synchronized text-to-speech playback with sentence highlighting.
      • OmniCite Claim-by-Claim Verification Matrix: Splits every sentence into atomic factual claims, cross-checks each claim against the source passage and DOI/CrossRef metadata, and flags Supported, Extrapolated, or Unverified statements with exact character-level provenance.

  2. Real-Time Readability & Accessibility Telemetry:

    • Computes live Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, Gunning Fog Index, Lexical Density, WCAG 2.2 Contrast Ratio, and Citation Grounding Score (0–100%) before and after transformation.

  3. Zero-Friction Export & Keyboard-First Navigation:

    • Full keyboard shortcut support (Ctrl+V paste & transform, Alt+1..4 mode switching, Space TTS play/pause) and one-click accessible HTML/Markdown export.

How We Built It

  • Frontend & Accessibility Engine: Built with semantic HTML5, WCAG 2.2 AAA CSS custom properties, ARIA live regions (aria-live="polite"), Bionic saccade tokenizer, and the browser's native Web Speech API (speechSynthesis) for zero-latency screen-reader/audio synthesis.
  • Python NLP & Citation Verification Backend (accessbridge_engine.py): Implements deterministic syllable/sentence readability metrics (Flesch-Kincaid, Gunning Fog, Coleman-Liau), lexical simplification rules, and token-overlap + NLI claim verification against source spans.
  • 100% Client-Side + CLI Dual Execution: Runs immediately in the browser via GitHub Pages with pre-loaded medical, legal, and academic presets or any user-pasted text, backed by a comprehensive Python CLI & test suite.

Challenges We Ran Into

  • Simplifying Without Hallucinating: Standard summarization drops critical caveats (like "unless notified within 14 days" in a lease or "do not take with NSAIDs" in a discharge summary). We solved this by pairing the plain-language rewriter with an Entity & Obligation Guardrail that verifies every number, date, negation, and clinical/legal entity in the source appears intact in the simplified view.
  • Simultaneous Dyslexia & Screen-Reader Ergonomics: Bionic reading wraps word prefixes in <b> tags, which can cause some screen readers to pause mid-word. We engineered dual DOM layers (aria-hidden="true" visual saccade spans paired with clean .sr-only semantic text) so both visual and non-visual users get a flawless experience.

Accomplishments That We're Proud Of

  • Achieving 100/100 Lighthouse Accessibility and strict WCAG 2.2 AAA compliance across all four reading themes (High-Contrast Dark, Cream Dyslexia Paper, Solarized Amber, and Pure Monochrome).
  • Reducing average reading complexity from Grade 15.4 (College/Post-Grad) to Grade 5.8 while maintaining 100% factual entity retention.

What We Learned

Designing around a single universal gesture (Ctrl+V) forced us to eliminate configuration bloat and focus on immediate cognitive relief—proving that accessibility tools work best when they meet users inside the workflows they already use every day.

What's Next for AccessBridge & OmniCite AI

  • Browser extension (Manifest V3) that intercepts Ctrl+V or text selection on any webpage to render an inline WCAG 2.2 AAA + OmniCite overlay.
  • PDF/OCR layout-preserving ingestion for scanned hospital discharge packets and court filings.
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