Literature Reviews

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

• Cognitively Motivated Features for Readability Assessment

  Lijun Feng, Noémie Elhadad, Matt Huenerfauth (2009) — Proceedings of the 12th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL 2009)

  Feng, Elhadad, and Huenerfauth (2009) develop and evaluate an automatic readability-assessment tool targeted specifically at adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) — people in the 'mild' category (IQ 55-70), who comprise roughly 3% of the U.S. po…

  • readability
  • automatic readability assessment
  • cognitive accessibility
  • intellectual disability
  • mild intellectual disability
  • text simplification
  • plain language
  • entity density
  • lexical chains
  • working memory
  • discourse features
  • Flesch-Kincaid
  • reading level
  • reading comprehension
  • user study
  • natural language processing
  • named entity recognition
  • computational linguistics
  • text-to-speech
  • literacy
  • Weekly Reader corpus
  • cognitively motivated features

• Methods for Evaluation of Imperfect Captioning Tools by Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Users at Different Reading Literacy Levels

  Larwan Berke, Sushant Kafle, Matt Huenerfauth (2018) — Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '18)

  This CHI 2018 paper (awarded an Honourable Mention) is the originating methodological study behind the group’s later Alonzo et al. work on Automatic Text Simplification evaluation. It asks: when Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) participants evaluate im…

  • captioning
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • automatic speech recognition
  • research methodology
  • literacy
  • accessibility research
  • qualitative research

• Comparison of Methods for Evaluating Complexity of Simplified Texts among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults at Different Literacy Levels

  Oliver Alonzo, Jessica Trussell, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth (2021) — Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21)

  This CHI 2021 paper is the companion methodological study to Alonzo et al.'s 2022 fluency work: where that later paper asked how to evaluate the fluency (grammaticality) of simplified texts, this one asks how to evaluate their complexity (whether the…

  • automatic text simplification
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • readability
  • reading accessibility
  • research methodology
  • literacy
  • natural language processing
  • qualitative research

• Methods for Evaluating the Fluency of Automatically Simplified Texts with Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults at Various Literacy Levels

  Oliver Alonzo, Jessica Trussell, Matthew Watkins, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth (2022) — Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper is a methodological study, not a product evaluation: the authors ask how researchers should measure the fluency of Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) output when the evaluators are Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) adults spanning a…

  • automatic text simplification
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • readability
  • reading accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • research methodology
  • literacy
  • qualitative research

• The PhonicStick: A Joystick to Generate Novel Words Using Phonics

  Rolf Black (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This short paper introduces the PhonicStick, a novel joystick-based device that enables non-speaking children to explore letter sounds (phonics) and blend them into words. The motivation stems from a key limitation of existing Voice Output Communicat…

  • AAC
  • phonological awareness
  • literacy
  • joystick
  • cerebral palsy
  • phonics
  • assistive technology
  • children
  • voice output
  • alternative input

• Using a Computer Intervention to Support Phonological Awareness Development of Nonspeaking Adults

  Ha Trinh (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This short paper presents a pilot study investigating whether a computer-based intervention delivered on an iPad can help adults with severe speech and physical impairments (SSPI) develop phonological awareness — the ability to identify and manipulat…

  • phonological awareness
  • literacy
  • severe speech and physical impairments
  • computer-based intervention
  • iPad
  • cerebral palsy
  • AAC
  • mainstream technology

• Leveraging Large Data Sets for User Requirements Analysis

  Maria K. Wolters, Vicki L. Hanson, Johanna D. Moore (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This paper demonstrates a novel methodology for using large-scale demographic surveys to inform the design of accessible technology. Rather than conducting specialized usability studies with small samples, the authors repurpose the English Longitudin…

  • inclusive design
  • aging
  • spoken dialogue systems
  • telecare
  • user requirements
  • design exclusion
  • hearing
  • dexterity
  • mobility
  • literacy
  • older adults

• Towards the Development of Haptic-Based Interface for Teaching Visually Impaired Arabic Handwriting

  Abeer S. Bayousuf, Hend S. Al-Khalifa, AbdulMalik S. Al-Salman (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This poster paper introduces an initial haptic-based system for teaching Arabic letter handwriting to students with visual impairments. Handwriting requires coordination of vision and hand movement, making it particularly challenging for visually imp…

  • visual impairment
  • haptic feedback
  • handwriting
  • Arabic
  • education
  • assistive technology
  • literacy

• A Computer-Based Method to Improve the Spelling of Children with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Clara Bayarri, Yolanda Otal, Martin Pielot (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper presents a novel method for improving the spelling skills of children with dyslexia through error-based exercises delivered via an iPad game called DysEggxia (Piruletras in Spanish). Unlike traditional approaches that present correct words…

  • dyslexia
  • spelling
  • serious games
  • literacy
  • education
  • cognitive accessibility
  • children
  • tablet accessibility

• Phoneme-based Predictive Text Entry Interface

  Ha Trinh, Annalu Waller, Keith Vertanen, Per Ola Kristensson, Vicki L. Hanson (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents iSCAN-2, an iPad application that enables nonspeaking individuals to enter text by selecting phonemes (speech sounds) rather than spelling words with letters. People with severe speech impairments often face challenges in literacy…

  • AAC
  • text entry
  • phoneme
  • speech impairment
  • word prediction
  • literacy
  • assistive technology
  • pie menu