Articles
Original articles on digital accessibility, research, and practice.
4 results found tagged sign language.
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Making Multimedia Accessible: What Researchers Are Learning About Audio, Video, Images, and Data
From AI-generated audio descriptions to customisable captions, the research on accessible multimedia content reveals how much the one-size-fits-all model fails. This article examines what researchers have found across approximately 150 papers on audio description, captioning, image descriptions, data visualisation, sign language, music, documents, and creative production — and the consistent finding that disabled users want control, customisation, and agency rather than standardised solutions imposed on their behalf.
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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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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.
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The Current State of Digital Accessibility Research and AI: What 137 Papers Tell Us
A comprehensive analysis of 137 peer-reviewed accessibility research papers published between 2021 and 2025, examining how AI is simultaneously the most promising tool and the most concerning threat in digital accessibility.