Articles
Original articles on digital accessibility, research, and practice.
16 articles — page 1 of 2
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Robots and Disability: What 36 Accessibility Studies Tell Us
A survey of 36 peer-reviewed accessibility research papers on robotics and disability — spanning the full CaBot / AI Suitcase navigation programme from Chieko Asakawa and colleagues, physical collaboration for blind users, gaze-controlled manipulation, feeding robots, telepresence in classrooms and museums, socially assistive robots (SARs) for older adults, adults with intellectual disabilities, AAC users, and perinatal depression screening, neurodivergent design with robot dogs and swarm robots, BMI-controlled performance, dynamic tactile graphics, a tabletop humanoid that teaches posture to blind learners, and Jang et al.'s theoretical reframing from autonomy to relational sovereignty.
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From WCAG 2.0 to AI: What a Thousand Research Papers Reveal About Web Accessibility's Evolution
An analysis of nearly a thousand peer-reviewed accessibility research papers published since WCAG 2.0, examining what has worked, what has failed, and where the field is heading — from the dynamic web breaking evaluation tools to AI-powered adaptation replacing developer compliance.
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The Right to Shape Sound: How Accessibility Research Is Rethinking Music Composition and Performance
Music is an inherently aural art form — so why is music technology so deeply inaccessible? This article examines 29 peer-reviewed papers on making music composition and performance accessible, from the bleak software landscape facing blind producers to vibrotactile alternatives that free the audio channel, text-based composition tools, brain-controlled robotic performance arms, Deaf sonic agency, and the consistent finding that community-designed music technology outperforms external design.
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Neurodivergence and Digital Accessibility: What Researchers Are Finding
Recent accessibility scholarship is investigating ADHD, autism, and neurodiversity with a breadth and critical depth that challenges how the field thinks about disability itself. This article examines what researchers have found across 88 papers — from biased measurement instruments and the failures of AI career chatbots to how ADHD students build collaborative access through body doubling and how autistic livestreamers find social connection through asymmetric platform dynamics.
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Beyond Speech: What Research Reveals About Augmentative, Alternative, and Accessible Communication
AAC research is moving past the speech-generating device toward a richer understanding of how communication actually works. This article examines 81 papers spanning AAC devices, sign language technology, speech recognition for atypical speech, captioning, and aphasia — revealing that 92.3% of high-tech AAC supports only verbal communication, 67% of devices are abandoned because vocabulary does not match daily life, and the most valued communication tools augment rather than replace users existing strategies.
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Getting There: What Accessibility Research Reveals About Navigation and Wayfinding
Moving through the world — indoors, outdoors, in transit, and online — remains one of the deepest accessibility challenges. This article examines what researchers have found across 64 papers on navigation technology ecosystems, the broken state of urban infrastructure data, the persistent indoor navigation gap, museums as testing grounds for multisensory access, wheelchair users information needs, the social nature of navigation, and why context determines everything.
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Trends in Digital Accessibility Research: What Researchers Are Investigating, Finding, and Flagging (2020-2025)
Six years of peer-reviewed accessibility scholarship reveal shifting priorities, emerging populations, and uncomfortable gaps. This article examines trends in what accessibility researchers are choosing to study — from generative AI and neurodivergent experiences to intersecting identities and the Global South — what they are finding, and what they say is still missing.
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First Person: How Autoethnography Is Changing What Accessibility Research Can Say
Disabled researchers are turning their own experiences into scholarship — and the findings challenge assumptions that third-person studies cannot reach. From the distinction between technical sufficiency and experiential adequacy to the social dimension of access that controlled evaluations flatten, autoethnographic research is producing concepts, failure stories, and questions that other methods cannot generate.
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Seeing Data Differently: How Accessibility Research Is Rethinking Charts, Graphs, and Visual Information
Data visualisation is one of the most persistent accessibility challenges — and researchers are moving beyond alt text to multimodal, interactive, and community-driven approaches. This article examines approximately 80 papers spanning the screen reader gap, sonification that achieves performance parity with sighted users, tactile graphics from embroidered textures to data comics, dashboard navigation, AI-assisted interpretation, the overlooked needs of low-vision magnifier users, and the shift from data consumption to data creation by blind users.
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Sign Language and Technology: Advances, Tensions, and the Question of Who Benefits
Research on sign language accessibility reveals a field where impressive technical progress coexists with fundamental questions about privacy, community authority, and whether the technology serves deaf people or merely studies them. This article examines 74 papers spanning recognition and translation, the 93% privacy concern rate for sign language data, the disconnect between ML practitioners and the Deaf community, avatar resistance, information access, learning technology, and the persistent one-directional translation bias.