Literature Reviews

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

• Back Navigation Shortcuts for Screen Reader Users

  Romisa Rohani Ghahari, Mexhid Ferati, Tao Yang, Davide Bolchini (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper introduces two novel back navigation strategies — topic-based back and list-based back — designed to make backtracking through previously visited web pages dramatically more efficient for screen reader users. The fundamental problem is tha…

  • screen readers
  • navigation
  • information architecture
  • blind users
  • web accessibility
  • usable accessibility
  • back navigation
  • aural browsing
  • cognitive load

• Bypassing Lists: Accelerating Screen-Reader Fact-Finding with Guided Tours

  Tao Yang, Prathik Gadde, Robert Morse, Davide Bolchini (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates whether guided tours — a navigation pattern that linearly links content pages with next/previous controls — can help screen-reader users perform fact-finding tasks more efficiently than traditional index-based navigation, part…

  • screen reader
  • web navigation
  • blindness
  • visual impairment
  • information scent
  • guided tour
  • web accessibility
  • fact-finding
  • usability

• PlatMult: A Multisensory Platform with Web Accessibility Features for Low Vision Users

  Marcio Oyamada, Jorge Bidarra, Clodis Boscarioli (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This poster paper presents PlatMult, an integrated hardware and software platform that combines three sensory modalities — visual, auditory, and tactile — to improve web accessibility for low vision users. The authors note that screen magnifiers, the…

  • low vision
  • screen magnifier
  • screen reader
  • haptic feedback
  • multisensory
  • assistive technology
  • web accessibility
  • open source

• Web Accessibility for Older Adults: Effects of Line Spacing and Text Justification on Reading Web Pages

  Helen Petrie, Sorachai Kamollimsakul, Christopher Power (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This poster paper empirically tests two common web accessibility recommendations for older adults: increased line spacing and left-only text justification. The authors note that at least 10 sets of guidelines for making websites accessible to older p…

  • older adults
  • web accessibility
  • typography
  • line spacing
  • text justification
  • readability
  • web design guidelines
  • aging

• Multilingual Website Assessment for Accessibility: A Survey on Current Practices

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez, Anton Bolfing (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This short paper presents results from a survey of 67 web accessibility professionals exploring how multilingual websites are assessed for accessibility. The authors note that when a monolingual website is localized into multiple languages, the acces…

  • web accessibility
  • multilingual web
  • localization
  • accessibility assessment
  • internationalization
  • evaluation methods

• Uncovering the Role of Expectations on Perceived Web Accessibility

  Amaia Aizpurua, Myriam Arrue, Markel Vigo (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper investigates how user expectations shape the perception of web accessibility for blind users, arguing that guideline compliance alone does not guarantee a satisfying user experience. The authors note a key gap: prior research found t…

  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • user experience
  • perceived accessibility
  • expectations
  • usability testing
  • WCAG
  • qualitative research

• WebInSight: Making Web Images Accessible

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Ryan S. Kaminsky, Richard E. Ladner, Oscar M. Danielsson, Gordon L. Hempton (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper introduces WebInSight, a system that automatically generates and inserts alternative text for web images that lack it. The authors first establish the scale of the problem through a series of web studies examining five groups of important …

  • web accessibility
  • alternative text
  • image accessibility
  • OCR
  • optical character recognition
  • transformation proxy
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • automated labeling
  • crowdsourcing

• WebinSitu: A Comparative Analysis of Blind and Sighted Browsing Behavior

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender, Jeremy T. Brudvik, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Richard E. Ladner (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper presents WebinSitu, a remote in situ study comparing the web browsing behavior of 10 blind and 10 sighted users over a one-week period. The study used an advanced web proxy built on UsaProxy that injected JavaScript into viewed pages to re…

  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • browsing behavior
  • user research
  • remote study
  • coping strategies
  • alternative text
  • dynamic content
  • AJAX
  • skip links

• Accessibility Commons: A Metadata Infrastructure for Web Accessibility

  Shinya Kawanaka, Yevgen Borodin, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Darren Lunn, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper introduces Accessibility Commons (AC), a shared metadata infrastructure designed to integrate, store, and share accessibility metadata produced by diverse research projects, assistive technologies, and individual users. The authors identif…

  • web accessibility
  • metadata
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers
  • social accessibility
  • crowdsourcing
  • alternative text
  • web transcoding

• Hunting for Headings: Sighted Labeling vs. Automatic Classification of Headings

  Jeremy T. Brudvik, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender, Richard E. Ladner (2008) — Assets '08: Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the problem of missing heading markup in web pages — a significant accessibility barrier for blind screen reader users who rely on heading navigation (h1-h6 tags) to quickly skip through page content rather than reading linear…

  • web accessibility
  • headings
  • screen readers
  • machine learning
  • semantic HTML
  • blind users
  • automated accessibility repair