Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Automated tactile graphics translation: in the field

  Chandrika Jayant, Matt Renzelmann, Dana Wen, Satria Krisnandi, Richard Ladner, Dan Comden (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper describes two years of field work extending the Tactile Graphics Assistant (TGA), a system developed at the University of Washington to automate the translation of figures from mathematics, science, and engineering (STEM) textbooks into em…

  • tactile graphics
  • Braille
  • STEM accessibility
  • blindness and low vision
  • image processing
  • machine learning
  • OCR
  • automated alternative formats
  • mathematical accessibility
  • accessible publishing

• Tactile Graphics with a Voice: Using QR Codes to Access Text in Tactile Graphics

  Catherine M. Baker, Lauren R. Milne, Jeffrey Scofield, Cynthia L. Bennett, Richard E. Ladner (2014) — ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents Tactile Graphics with a Voice (TGV), a system that makes text labels in tactile graphics accessible by replacing Braille labels with QR codes that can be scanned and read aloud using a smartphone. The motivation is significant: wh…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • tactile graphics
  • QR codes
  • Braille
  • education
  • assistive technology
  • non-visual feedback

• Towards Devising a Low-cost and Easy-to-use Arithmetic Learning Framework for Economically Less-privileged Visually Impaired Children

  Tusher Chakraborty, Taslim Arefin Khan, A. B. M. Alim Al Islam (2018) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a critical gap in assistive technology: the lack of affordable, easy-to-use tools for teaching arithmetic to visually impaired children in low-income countries. While assistive calculators and digital tools exist, they are prohib…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • mathematics education
  • low-resource settings
  • Braille
  • assistive technology
  • Global South
  • participatory design
  • children

• Exploring Blind and Low-Vision Youth's Digital Access Needs in School: Toward Accessible Instructional Technologies

  Natalie L. Shaheen (2024) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This mixed methods study investigates how blind and low-vision (BLV) youth ages 13-22 experience technology-mediated learning in US K-12 schools. The author, herself congenitally blind and a former teacher of blind students, conducted semi-structured…

  • blind and low vision
  • K-12 education
  • instructional technology
  • access technology
  • screen readers
  • Braille
  • youth
  • design guidelines

• Haptic Gloves Prototype for Audio-Tactile Web Browsing

  Andrii Soviak (2015) — ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents preliminary work on FeelX, a haptic gloves system designed to enable blind users to explore web page layouts through touch. The research addresses a fundamental limitation of screen readers: they present web content serially, crea…

  • blindness
  • haptic interface
  • web accessibility
  • screen reader
  • tactile display
  • wearable
  • Braille
  • spatial layout
  • assistive technology

• Hyperbraille: a hypertext system for the blind

  T. Kieninger, N. Kuhn (1994) — Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '94)

  This 1994 paper presents Hyperbraille, a system designed to make hypertext documents accessible to blind users through braille output devices. The research addresses a fundamental challenge: hypertext systems rely heavily on visual cues such as highl…

  • Braille
  • hypertext
  • blind users
  • navigation
  • document analysis
  • accessibility
  • office workplace
  • braille display
  • link management
  • non-visual browsing
  • document conversion

• Towards collaborative annotation for video accessibility

  Pierre-Antoine Champin, Benoît Encelle, Nicholas W. D. Evans, Magali O.-Beldame, Yannick Prié, Raphaël Troncy (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the ACAV (Collaborative Annotation for Video Accessibility) project, a French research initiative involving Dailymotion, the University of Lyon (LIRIS), and EURECOM, aimed at making web video accessible to blind and deaf users thr…

  • video accessibility
  • audio description
  • captioning
  • crowdsourcing
  • speech recognition
  • Braille
  • multimodal interaction
  • semantic web
  • collaborative annotation

• A Tangible Math Game for Visually Impaired Children

  Ana Cristina Pires, Sebastian Marichal, Fernando Gonzalez-Perilli, Ewelina Bakala, Bruno Fleischer, Gustavo Sansone, Tiago Guerreiro (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper presents iCETA, an inclusive interactive system for math learning that enables visually impaired children to autonomously engage with and solve additive composition tasks (addition and subtraction) through tangible interactio…

  • visual impairment
  • children
  • mathematics accessibility
  • tangible user interface
  • inclusive design
  • STEM accessibility
  • Braille
  • haptic feedback
  • gamification
  • participatory design
  • educational technology

• Feel-It: Personalized Audio-Tactile Web Browsing

  Anatoliy Borodin, Yevgen Borodin, Andrii Soviak, Vikas Ashok, Shirin Disfani, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2019) — Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents Feel-It, a hardware-software system for audio-tactile web browsing that enables blind users to explore the two-dimensional spatial layout of web pages through touch. The core problem addressed is that screen readers …

  • blindness
  • haptic feedback
  • tactile display
  • web browsing
  • screen reader
  • assistive technology
  • personalization
  • computer vision
  • Braille
  • web segmentation

• Adaptable Accessibility Features for Mathematics on the Web

  Davide Cervone, Volker Sorge (2019) — Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the accessibility features in MathJax version 3, the widely-used JavaScript library for rendering mathematics on the web. The fundamental challenge is that standard mathematical markup formats (LaTeX, ASCIIMath, presentation MathM…

  • mathematics accessibility
  • MathJax
  • STEM accessibility
  • screen reader
  • Braille
  • speech output
  • dyslexia
  • low vision
  • personalization
  • web accessibility
  • MathML
  • semantic enrichment