When is a List is a List?: Web Page Re-authoring for Small Display Devices

Hassan Alam, Fuad Rahman, Yuliya Tarnikova

Abstract: List detection and understanding is an important component of the web page re-authoring process. Lists are high level logical elements within a web document, and web pages re-authored to view on small screen handheld devices often perform a poor job of keeping this construct intact. The separation of logical association of the list elements in the re-authored output often leads to poor readability and difficult navigation. In this poster, we propose and demonstrate how simple heuristics can be used to detect and analyze lists within HTML pages and how the list can be re-authored in a way to maximize the readability and navigability of web browsing in small screen devices. The proposed technique can be used in web page re-authoring, summarizing, web archiving, web search and conversion of HTML documents to other formats.