Literature Reviews

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

• Modeling Touch Input for Users with Motor Impairments: Empirical Insights into Training Size Requirements

  Radu-Daniel Vatavu, Irina Petrariu, Tudor Horomnea, Ovidiu-Ciprian Ungurean (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI Extended Abstract addresses a practical question for ability-based design: how many touch observations do you actually need before you can build a user-specific model of someone's touch performance? Most touch modeling work, including Bayesi…

  • touch input
  • motor impairment
  • ability-based design
  • adaptive interfaces
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • user modeling
  • personalization
  • mobile accessibility

• Challenges in Automatic Speech Recognition for Adults with Cognitive Impairment

  Michelle Cohn, Alyssa Lanzi, Yui Ishihara, Chen-Nee Chuah, Georgia Zellou, Alyssa Weakley (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper quantifies how well state-of-the-art automatic speech recognition (ASR) handles voice commands produced by older adults with cognitive impairment, and asks which acoustic features actually predict transcription accuracy. The autho…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • ASR
  • dementia
  • Alzheimer's disease
  • mild cognitive impairment
  • AgeTech
  • voice assistant
  • Amazon Alexa
  • Whisper
  • aging in place
  • ability-based design
  • acoustic analysis
  • word error rate
  • smart home
  • human-in-the-loop

• A Personalized and Adaptable User Interface for a Speech and Cursor Brain-Computer Interface

  Hamza Peracha, Carrina Iacobacci, Tyler Singer-Clark, Leigh R Hochberg, Sergey D. Stavisky, David M. Brandman, Nicholas S Card (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports on the user interface design for an intracortical brain-computer interface (BCI) deployed for everyday at-home use by people with severe paralysis. The work centers on a 22-month longitudinal co-design study with one BrainGate2 tri…

  • brain-computer interface
  • AAC
  • ALS
  • amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
  • paralysis
  • speech neuroprosthesis
  • co-design
  • personalization
  • ability-based design
  • longitudinal deployment

• Imagine, Interact: Eliciting Accessible Interactions from Users with Motor Impairments via Imagined Input Devices

  Radu-Daniel Vatavu, Ovidiu-Ciprian Ungurean (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports an end-user gesture elicitation study with eleven participants with upper-body motor impairments - including spinal cord injury, spina bifida, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, and traumatic brain injury - who were a…

  • motor impairment
  • gesture input
  • end-user elicitation
  • imagined devices
  • ability-based design
  • accessible computing
  • assistive technology

• Ability Heuristics for Conducting Accessibility Inspections

  Claire L. Mitchell, Junhan Kong, Jesse J. Martinez, Shaun K. Kane, Amy J. Ko, Alexis Hiniker, Jacob O. Wobbrock (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Mitchell and colleagues develop and evaluate a set of nine 'ability heuristics' intended to let designers and developers — not just accessibility specialists — inspect interactive technology for accessibility problems. The authors argue that existing…

  • heuristic evaluation
  • ability-based design
  • accessibility inspection
  • accessibility evaluation
  • design methods
  • inspection methods
  • accessibility quality
  • design education

• Blind People and Mobile Touch-based Text-Entry: Acknowledging the Need for Different Flavors

  João Oliveira, Tiago Guerreiro, Hugo Nicolau, Joaquim Jorge, Daniel Gonçalves (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates how individual differences among blind people affect their performance with different touchscreen text-entry methods. Thirteen blind participants (ages 24-62) were evaluated using four methods on a Samsung Galaxy S: QWERTY (st…

  • blindness and low vision
  • text entry
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • mobile accessibility
  • ability-based design
  • personalization
  • braille
  • input methods

• Ability-Based Design: Concept, Principles and Examples

  Jacob O. Wobbrock, Shaun K. Kane, Krzysztof Z. Gajos, Susumu Harada, Jon Froehlich (2011) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This foundational paper introduces ability-based design as a paradigm shift in accessible computing—moving focus from what users cannot do (disability) to what they can do (ability). The authors argue that traditional approaches like assistive techno…

  • ability-based design
  • universal design
  • inclusive design
  • adaptive interfaces
  • motor impairment
  • assistive technology
  • design methodology

• Toward a Competency-based Approach to Co-designing Technologies with People with Intellectual Disability

  Andrew A. Bayor, Margot Brereton, Laurianne Sitbon, Bernd Ploderer, Filip Bircanin, Benoit Favre, Stewart Koplick (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper proposes a Competency-based design approach for co-designing technologies with people with intellectual disability, extending Wobbrock et al.'s influential ability-based design framework. While ability-based design focuses on what users "c…

  • intellectual disability
  • co-design
  • participatory design
  • ability-based design
  • cognitive accessibility
  • social media
  • accessible design methodology

• Implementing Ability-Based Design: A Systematic Approach to Conceptual User Modeling

  Amelie Nolte, Jacob Wobbrock, Torben Volkmann, Nicole Jochems (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a critical gap in Ability-Based Design (ABD): while the concept has been influential in accessibility research for over a decade, it has lacked a systematic methodology for implementation. ABD, introduced by Wobbrock et al., shif…

  • ability-based design
  • user modeling
  • design methodology
  • requirements analysis
  • accessible design
  • inclusive design

• Accuracy and Reliability of At-Home Quantification of Motor Impairments Using a Computer-Based Pointing Task with Children with Ataxia-Telangiectasia

  Vineet Pandey, Nergis C. Khan, Anoopum S. Gupta, Krzysztof Z. Gajos (2023) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper validates at-home, unsupervised use of Hevelius, a web-based active digital phenotyping system that quantifies motor impairment in the dominant arm through mouse pointing tasks. The study addresses a critical gap: while prior research show…

  • motor impairment
  • digital phenotyping
  • remote assessment
  • ataxia
  • pointing tasks
  • pediatric
  • ability-based design
  • mouse input