Literature Reviews

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

• aiBrowser for multimedia: introducing multimedia content accessibility for visually impaired users

  Hisashi Miyashita, Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  A companion paper to Sato et al.'s Flash-transcoding work, this 2007 paper from the same IBM Tokyo Research Lab team introduces aiBrowser — an accessible web browser purpose-built for multimedia-heavy sites of the era (ABC News Video, YouTube, Disney…

  • multimedia
  • streaming media
  • flash
  • DHTML
  • rich internet applications
  • screen readers
  • alternative text
  • metadata
  • visual impairment
  • web accessibility
  • audio interference
  • keyboard navigation

• Transforming Flash to XML for Accessibility Evaluations

  Shin Saito, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper from IBM Tokyo Research Laboratory proposes a method for transforming Flash content into XML structures to enable automated accessibility evaluation. At the time of publication, Flash was installed on over 95% of personal computers and was…

  • Flash accessibility
  • automated testing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • rich internet applications
  • screen readers
  • XML transformation
  • MSAA

• Improving the Accessibility of Dynamic Web Content for Older Users

  Darren Lunn, Simon Harper (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the SCWeb2 (Senior Citizens on the Web 2.0) Assistant Tool, a browser extension designed to help older users understand and interact with dynamic Web 2.0 content. The authors build on their previous research showing that older use…

  • aging
  • dynamic content
  • web accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • AJAX
  • rich internet applications
  • user experience
  • browser extension

• The AccDC Enterprise API for Advanced UI Automation

  Bryan Garaventa (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents the AccDC Enterprise API, a JavaScript-based dynamic content management system designed to build Rich Internet Applications with automatic accessibility built in from the ground up. Created by Bryan Garaventa through WhatSock…

  • WAI-ARIA
  • JavaScript
  • rich internet applications
  • web accessibility
  • accessibility tools
  • dynamic content
  • screen readers
  • keyboard accessibility

• Evaluating the Accessibility of Rich Internet Applications

  Nádia Fernandes, Daniel Costa, Sergio Neves, Carlos Duarte, Luís Carriço (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper addresses a critical gap in automated accessibility evaluation: most tools only assess the initial HTML served to the browser, missing the dynamically generated content that defines modern Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). Web application…

  • automated testing
  • web accessibility
  • rich internet applications
  • AJAX
  • dynamic content
  • DOM manipulation
  • accessibility evaluation

• A Web Compliance Engineering Framework to Support the Development of Accessible Rich Internet Applications

  Carlos A Velasco, Dimitar Denev, Dirk Stegemann, Yehya Mohamad (2008) — Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A 2008)

  This paper from Fraunhofer Institute introduces Web Compliance Engineering as a new discipline within Web Engineering, and presents a software framework (imergo) designed to support accessibility compliance for Rich Internet Applications. The authors…

  • web compliance engineering
  • rich internet applications
  • accessibility testing
  • semantic web
  • EARL
  • software engineering
  • quality assurance
  • automated testing

• Accessibility of Emerging Rich Web Technologies: Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web

  Michael Cooper (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This keynote paper by Michael Cooper of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative examines the accessibility challenges and opportunities created by the emergence of Web 2.0 technologies in the mid-2000s. Cooper frames Web 2.0 as a paradigm shift characte…

  • WAI-ARIA
  • Web 2.0
  • Semantic Web
  • rich internet applications
  • web standards
  • assistive technology
  • accessibility API
  • dynamic content

• Using Acceptance Tests to Validate Accessibility Requirements in RIA

  Willian Massami Watanabe, Renata P. M. Fortes, Ana Luiza Dias (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper addresses a significant gap in automated accessibility testing: the inability of traditional static HTML evaluation tools to assess Rich Internet Applications (RIA) that use Ajax, JavaScript, and dynamically generated DOM content. The auth…

  • automated testing
  • acceptance testing
  • continuous integration
  • rich internet applications
  • keyboard accessibility
  • dynamic content
  • ARIA
  • test-driven development

• Application of Traditional Software Testing Methodologies to Web Accessibility

  Cynthia C. Shelly, Mike Barta (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  Written by authors from Microsoft and the University of Washington, this paper argues that the evolution of web content from static documents to dynamic Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) demands a corresponding evolution in accessibility testing meth…

  • accessibility testing
  • software development
  • quality assurance
  • shift-left accessibility
  • automated testing
  • WCAG compliance
  • rich internet applications

• Towards Web Accessibility Repair

  Nádia Fernandes (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents early-stage research on automatically evaluating and repairing accessibility problems in Rich Internet Applications (RIAs). The author identifies a critical gap: as the web evolves from static pages to complex,…

  • automated testing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility repair
  • rich internet applications
  • ARIA
  • WCAG 2.0
  • dynamic content
  • web development tools