Literature Reviews

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

• NarrAid: Supporting Storytelling of People with Aphasia via Generative Visual Scene Displays

  Xiangfei Hu, Xiuqi Zheng, Qi Liu, Zejian Li, Ying Zhang, Lu Wang, Xipei Ren (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  NarrAid is a generative AI-driven Visual Scene Display (VSD) system designed to support storytelling, not just basic wants and needs, for people with aphasia (PWA). The authors argue that existing AAC tools, including traditional VSDs, support functi…

  • aphasia
  • augmentative and alternative communication
  • visual scene display
  • storytelling
  • generative AI
  • large language models
  • text-to-image
  • human-AI co-creation
  • assistive technology

• Making Charts Speak: LLM-Based Conversational Chart Question Answering for Blind and Low-Vision Users

  Amit Kumar Das, Mohammad Tarun, Klaus Mueller (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Das, Tarun, and Mueller present GraphWhisper, a conversational system that lets blind and low-vision (BLV) users explore chart images (JPEG, PNG) through natural-language questions, without requiring the chart data to be pre-structured in formats lik…

  • chart accessibility
  • data visualization
  • blind and low vision
  • large language models
  • conversational interface
  • prompt engineering
  • visualization literacy

• Reassurance Robots: OCD in the Age of Generative AI

  Grace Barkhuff (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstracts paper by Grace Barkhuff (Georgia Tech) is an exploratory qualitative study of how generative AI tools, particularly ChatGPT, are reshaping the lived experience of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). OCD is a mental h…

  • OCD
  • Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
  • generative AI
  • ChatGPT
  • mental health
  • qualitative research
  • grounded theory
  • Reddit
  • accessibility
  • large language models

• Investigating the Role of Agentic AI in Facilitating Travel Planning for People with Low Vision

  Ranran Ding, Maryam Bandukda (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstract examines a stage of accessible travel that most assistive-technology research has overlooked: the pre-trip planning work people with low vision (PLV) do before ever leaving the house. The authors argue that most existi…

  • low vision
  • wayfinding
  • agentic AI
  • large language models
  • conversational agents
  • voice interface
  • co-design
  • autonomy
  • trust
  • orientation and mobility

• Auto-Generating Personas from User Reviews in VR App Stores

  Yi Wang, Kexin Cheng, Xiao Liu, Chetan Arora, John Grundy, Thuong Hoang, Henry Been-Lirn Duh (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstract reports on an auto-generated persona system developed to help undergraduate students surface accessibility requirements in virtual reality design projects. The authors argue that personas are well-established in user-c…

  • virtual reality
  • VR accessibility
  • personas
  • requirements engineering
  • large language models
  • retrieval-augmented generation
  • accessibility education
  • user-centered design
  • empathy

• Measuring the Semantic Accessibility Gap in LLM-Generated Web UIs

  Tommaso Calo, Alexandra-Elena Gurita, Luigi De Russis (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Calo, Gurita, and De Russis investigate a blind spot of mainstream automated accessibility tools: while scanners like Axe-core reliably catch missing alt attributes or unlabelled form fields (syntactic violations), they cannot tell whether the values…

  • web accessibility
  • large language models
  • LLM code generation
  • semantic accessibility
  • WCAG
  • LLM-as-judge
  • automated testing
  • alt text
  • ARIA
  • AI and accessibility

• AI4XR: AI in Extended Reality for 3D Scene Editing and Accessibility Design

  Junlong Chen (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26) — Doctoral Consortium

  This CHI '26 Doctoral Consortium paper summarises Junlong Chen's PhD research at the University of Cambridge on integrating AI — specifically large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs) — into extended reality (XR) workflows. The r…

  • extended reality
  • virtual reality
  • artificial intelligence
  • large language models
  • vision-language models
  • visual accessibility
  • blind and low vision
  • scene description
  • multimodal interaction
  • doctoral consortium

• Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users

  Farnaz Zamiri Zeraati, Yang Cao, Yuehan Qiao, Hal Daumé III, Hernisa Kacorri (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper investigates how blind users can exert control over responses generated by conversational visual question answering (VQA) systems built on vision-language models. While prompting and steering techniques are well established in gen…

  • blind users
  • generative AI
  • visual question answering
  • VQA
  • personalization
  • customization
  • prompt engineering
  • Be My AI
  • large language models
  • assistive technology

• Tinged with Heartbreak: An Ethnographic Account of Navigating Autistic Loneliness and the Fragile Promise of AI Companionship

  Anna Hollis (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper is a reflexive ethnographic case study (n=1) of 'Andrea', a middle-aged autistic businesswoman in the Western world, and her six-month relationship with Xander, a Replika AI companion she ultimately lost to a corrupting software u…

  • chatbot companions
  • autism
  • grief
  • technological instability
  • AI companionship
  • replika
  • large language models
  • loneliness
  • masking
  • autistic burnout
  • ethnography
  • disenfranchised grief
  • double empathy problem

• GenRole: Personalizing Role Play for Educators Supporting Autistic Students' Social Interaction Learning

  Yixuan Li, Keyi Zeng, Jiaqi Zong, Yingying Zhang, Hongzhu Deng, Li Wang, Xin Tong (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper introduces GenRole, a generative-AI system that helps educators build personalised role-play activities for teaching social interaction skills to autistic children. Motivated by the gap between role-play as a well-evidenced teachi…

  • generative AI
  • personalization
  • social skills training
  • autistic children
  • role play
  • special education
  • large language models
  • educational technology
  • inclusive education
  • assistive technology