Literature Reviews

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

• Chat in the Hat: A Portable Interpreter for Sign Language Users

  Larwan Berke, William Thies, Danielle Bragg (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper addresses a fundamental limitation of Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) sign language users: existing smartphone-based VRI requires the DHH person to either hold the phone with one hand (reducing signing to…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • video remote interpreting
  • augmented reality
  • workplace accessibility
  • wearable technology
  • ASL

• Breaking Boundaries with Live Transcribe: Expanding Use Cases Beyond Standard Captioning Scenarios

  Fernando Loizides, Sara Basson, Dimitri Kanevsky, Olga Prilepova, Sagar Savla, Susanna Zaraysky (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This short paper catalogs non-traditional, serendipitous uses of Google's Live Transcribe, a free Android application that provides real-time speech-to-text transcription in over 80 languages. The authors — a mix of Google developers, researchers, an…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • captioning
  • speech to text
  • COVID-19
  • communication accessibility
  • mobile accessibility

• Student and Teacher Perspectives of Learning ASL in an Online Setting

  Garreth W. Tigwell, Roshan L Peiris, Stacey Watson, Gerald M. Garavuso, Heather Miller (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This experience report examines the challenges and opportunities of teaching and learning American Sign Language (ASL) online during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspectives of both students and a Deaf instructor at Rochester Institute of Technol…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • education accessibility
  • videoconferencing
  • remote learning
  • communication accessibility
  • COVID-19

• Access Differential and Inequitable Access: Inaccessibility for Doctoral Students in Computing

  Kristen Shinohara, Michael McQuaid, Nayeri Jacobo (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This paper investigates why the pipeline of students with disabilities pursuing doctoral degrees in computing remains so thin, despite increased support at the undergraduate level. In 2018, the NSF reported that only about 3% of math and computer sci…

  • education accessibility
  • disability rights
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • blindness and low vision
  • digital accessibility
  • screen readers
  • accessibility barriers
  • organizational accessibility

• Reading Experiences and Interest in Reading-Assistance Tools Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Computing Professionals

  Oliver Alonzo, Lisa Elliot, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This study investigates whether Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) computing professionals are interested in Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) tools to assist with reading in their professional work. ATS software rewrites text to improve readability us…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • automatic text simplification
  • reading accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • assistive technology
  • workplace accessibility
  • plain language

• Deaf and hard-of-hearing users’ prioritization of genres of online video content requiring accurate captions

  Larwan Berke, Matthew Seita, Matt Huenerfauth (2020) — Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates which genres of online video content Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) users consider most important to have accurately captioned. With over 400 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute and no U.S. legal mandate to caption…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • captioning
  • video accessibility
  • automatic speech recognition
  • user research
  • Best-Worst Scaling

• American Sign Language Video Anonymization to Support Online Participation of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users

  Sooyeon Lee, Abraham Glasser, Becca Dingman, Zhaoyang Xia, Dimitris Metaxas, Carol Neidle, Matt Huenerfauth (2021) — ASSETS '21: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals who prefer to communicate in American Sign Language (ASL) face a unique privacy barrier online: because ASL is a visual language conveyed through movements of the face, head, hands, and torso, and because th…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • American Sign Language
  • anonymization
  • privacy
  • face transformation
  • online participation
  • video communication

• Lost in Translation: Challenges and Barriers to Sign Language-Accessible User Research

  Amelie Unger, Dieter P. Wallach, Nicole Jochems (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This experience report describes the challenges hearing researchers face when conducting user research with sign language (SL) users, based on the authors' experience running remote focus groups with German Sign Language (GSL) users as part of the AV…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • user research
  • focus groups
  • language accessibility
  • ability-based design
  • research methods
  • German Sign Language
  • inclusion

• At a Different Pace: Evaluating Whether Users Prefer Timing Parameters in American Sign Language Animations to Differ from Human Signers' Timing

  Sedeeq Al-khazraji, Becca Dingman, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper investigates whether deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) ASL signers actually prefer sign language animations with timing parameters that match human signers, or whether they prefer some form of exaggeration for additional clarity. Adding ASL a…

  • American Sign Language
  • sign language animation
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • timing parameters
  • avatar
  • accessibility
  • user preferences
  • natural language generation

• I See What You're Saying: A Literature Review of Eye Tracking Research in Communication of Deaf or Hard of Hearing Users

  Chanchal Agrawal, Roshan L Peiris (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper presents a comprehensive literature review of 55 eye-tracking studies examining the gaze patterns and communication behaviours of deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals. The authors systematically searched ACM, IEEE, Google Scholar, and…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • eye tracking
  • eye gaze
  • sign language
  • lip-reading
  • captions
  • attention management
  • visual communication
  • literature review