Literature Reviews

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

• Beyond Additive Design: An Empirical Taxonomy of Multimodal STEM Accessibility Systems

  Madjid Sadallah, Benoit Encelle (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Sadallah and Encelle conduct a systematic review of 66 multimodal STEM accessibility systems for blind and visually impaired (BVI) users published between 2015 and 2025, drawn from the ACM Digital Library, IEEE Xplore, OpenAlex, PubMed, and Web of Sc…

  • STEM accessibility
  • multimodal interaction
  • cognitive load
  • sensory integration
  • blind and low vision
  • systematic review
  • accessibility research
  • sonification
  • tactile graphics
  • haptics
  • cognitive engineering

• Three Modalities, Two Design Probes, One Prototype, and No Vision: Experience-Based Co-Design of a Multi-modal 3D Data Visualization Tool

  Sanchita S. Kamath, Aziz N. Zeidieh, Venkatesh Potluri, Sile O'Modhrain, Kenneth Perry, JooYoung Seo (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Kamath et al. report an Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) process in which five blind or low-vision (BLV) researchers and one sighted collaborator built a web-native, multimodal prototype for exploring 3D surface plots - a class of visualisation cent…

  • blind and low vision
  • data visualization
  • 3D visualization
  • sonification
  • spatial audio
  • tactile graphics
  • experience-based co-design
  • multimodal interaction
  • STEM accessibility
  • non-visual interaction
  • participatory design
  • co-design
  • web 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

• A Cisco Education Tool Accessible to the Vision Impaired

  J. Hope, B. R. von Konsky, I. Murray, L. C. Chew, B. Farrugia (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper describes iNetSim, a universally accessible network simulator developed at Curtin University of Technology to allow vision-impaired and sighted students to complete Cisco Certified Network Associate level 2 (CCNA 2) laboratory sessions. Th…

  • visual impairment
  • education
  • screen reader
  • VoiceOver
  • network simulation
  • STEM accessibility
  • universal access
  • IT certification

• Lambda: A Multimodal Approach to Making Mathematics Accessible to Blind Students

  Alistair D N Edwards, Heather McCartney, Flavio Fogarolo (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper presents the Lambda System, a European Union-funded project designed to make mathematics accessible to blind students through a multimodal mathematical editor. Mathematics relies heavily on visual two-dimensional notation — fractions are s…

  • visual impairment
  • mathematics
  • braille
  • education
  • MathML
  • multimodal interface
  • screen reader
  • STEM accessibility

• MathPlayer: Web-Based Math Accessibility

  Neil Soiffer (2005) — Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This poster paper presents MathPlayer, a free plug-in for Microsoft Internet Explorer developed by Design Science Inc. that renders MathML (Mathematical Markup Language) visually in web pages and makes mathematical expressions accessible to people wi…

  • mathematical accessibility
  • MathML
  • screen readers
  • print disability
  • learning disabilities
  • braille
  • STEM accessibility
  • web accessibility

• PLUMB: Displaying Graphs to the Blind Using an Active Auditory Interface

  Robert F. Cohen, Rui Yu, Arthur Meacham, Joelle Skaff (2005) — Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This short paper presents PLUMB (exPLoring graphs at UMB), a system developed at UMass Boston that enables blind users to explore relational graphs through an active auditory interface on a tablet PC. The system addresses a fundamental barrier in com…

  • sonification
  • graph accessibility
  • blindness
  • auditory interface
  • computer science education
  • non-visual interaction
  • data visualization
  • STEM accessibility

• Automating Tactile Graphics Translation

  Richard E. Ladner, Melody Y. Ivory, Rajesh Rao, Sheryl Burgstahler, Dan Comden, Sangyun Hahn, Matthew Renzelmann, Satria Krisnandi, Mahalakshmi Ramasamy, Beverly Slabosky, Andrew Martin, Amelia Lacenski, Stuart Olsen, Dmitri Groce (2005) — Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper addresses the critical shortage of tactile graphics available to blind students in mathematics, science, and engineering (MSE) courses. Postsecondary science textbooks may have images on half their pages — sometimes up to 500 images per bo…

  • tactile graphics
  • braille
  • STEM accessibility
  • image processing
  • machine learning
  • visual impairment
  • assistive technology
  • automation
  • accessible publishing

• Nonvisual Tool for Navigating Hierarchical Structures

  Ann C. Smith, Justin S. Cook, Joan M. Francioni, Asif Hossain, Mohd Anwar, M. Fayezur Rahman (2004) — Proceedings of the 6th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets 04)

  This paper presents the Aural Tree Navigator, an Eclipse IDE plug-in that enables blind programmers to navigate hierarchical program structures (such as package explorers, class hierarchies, and file systems) using keyboard commands and speech/sound …

  • IDE accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • programming
  • screen reader
  • tree navigation
  • auditory interface
  • software development
  • Eclipse
  • earcon
  • STEM accessibility

• UMA: A System for Universal Mathematics Accessibility

  A. I. Karshmer, G. Gupta, E. Pontelli, K. Miesenberger, N. Ammalai, D. Gopal, M. Batusic, B. Stöger, B. Palmer, H-F. Guo (2004) — Proceedings of the 6th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets 04)

  This paper presents the Universal Mathematics Accessibility (UMA) system, a multi-institution collaboration to make mathematical content interoperable between the notation systems used by blind and sighted individuals. The fundamental problem is that…

  • mathematical accessibility
  • braille
  • visual impairment
  • STEM accessibility
  • MathML
  • Nemeth Braille
  • aural navigation
  • format conversion
  • assistive technology