Literature Reviews

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

• Supporting People with Acquired Brain Injury to Use a Reminding App; Narrow-deep vs. Broad-shallow User Interfaces

  Matthew Jamieson, Marilyn Lennon, Breda Cullen, Stephen Brewster, Jonathan Evans (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This study compares two contrasting user interface approaches for smartphone reminder apps used by people with acquired brain injury (ABI). "Broad-shallow" interfaces show lots of information on fewer screens (requiring scrolling), while "narrow-deep…

  • acquired brain injury
  • cognitive accessibility
  • user interface design
  • assistive technology
  • memory aids
  • prospective memory
  • mobile apps

• Career Interview Readiness in Virtual Reality (CIRVR): A Platform for Simulated Interview Training for Autistic Individuals and Their Employers

  Deeksha Adiani, Aaron Itzkovitz, Dayi Bian, Harrison Katz, Michael Breen, Spencer Hunt, Amy Swanson, Timothy J. Vogus, Joshua Wade, Nilanjan Sarkar (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents CIRVR (Career Interview Readiness in Virtual Reality), a closed-loop adaptive VR platform designed to help autistic individuals practice job interview skills. The system addresses a critical employment barrier: only 10-50% of auti…

  • autism spectrum disorder
  • virtual reality
  • employment
  • job interviews
  • stress detection
  • eye tracking
  • affective computing
  • speech recognition

• INC-Hg: An Intelligent Collaborative Haptic-Gripper Virtual Reality System for Children with Autism to Develop Social Skills

  Yao Zhao, Nicole Shay, Jonathan Cofino, Debra Sterling, Erin Paquette, Adriana Debarros, Maria Gillen, Michelle Won, Zhigang Zhu, Cecilia Feeley, Amy Hurst (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents INC-Hg (Intelligent Collaborative Haptic-Gripper), a VR system designed to help children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) practice collaborative and social communication skills. The system addresses a significant challenge: tra…

  • autism spectrum disorder
  • virtual reality
  • collaborative learning
  • haptic feedback
  • intelligent agents
  • social skills
  • speech recognition
  • children

• Deep Learning Methods for Sign Language Translation

  Tejaswini Ananthanarayana, Priyanshu Srivastava, Akash Chintha, Akhil Santha, Brian Landy, Joseph Panaro, Andre Webster, Nikunj Kotecha, Shagan Sah, Thomastine Sarchet, Raymond Ptucha, Ifeoma Nwogu (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This comprehensive study evaluates deep learning methods for translating sign language video directly to spoken/written text—critically, without requiring the intermediate step of gloss-based recognition (manual sign-for-sign transcription). The rese…

  • sign language
  • machine translation
  • deep learning
  • transformer
  • neural network
  • computer vision
  • Deaf and Hard of Hearing
  • sequence modeling
  • pose estimation

• Privacy Concerns for Visual Assistance Technologies

  Abigale Stangl, Kristina Shiroma, Nathan Davis, Bo Xie, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Leah Findlater, Danna Gurari (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This comprehensive study examines privacy concerns of blind users when sharing images and videos with visual assistance technologies (VATs) like Aira, Be My Eyes, and Seeing AI. The research addresses a fundamental tension: blind people must share vi…

  • visual impairment
  • privacy
  • visual assistance technology
  • artificial intelligence
  • remote sighted assistance
  • image description
  • privacy policy
  • data protection

• Comic Spin: A Comic Creation Tool Enabling Self-expression for People with Aphasia

  Carla Tamburro, Timothy Neate, Abi Roper, Stephanie Wilson (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  Comic Spin is a tablet application (iOS and Android) designed to enable people with aphasia to create comic strips through a constrained creativity approach. Aphasia, typically caused by stroke, affects language abilities including reading, writing, …

  • aphasia
  • creativity support tools
  • constrained creativity
  • self-expression
  • stroke
  • language impairment
  • accessible design
  • mobile application

• AIGuide: Augmented Reality Hand Guidance in a Visual Prosthetic

  Sooyeon Lee, Chien Wen Yuan, So-yeon Yoon, John M. Carroll (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  AIGuide is an iOS smartphone application designed as a "visual prosthetic" to help people with visual impairments locate and physically reach objects in their environment. The app addresses what the authors call the "last meter problem"—while existin…

  • augmented reality
  • visual impairment
  • object detection
  • hand guidance
  • multimodal feedback
  • haptic feedback
  • smartphone accessibility
  • assistive technology

• Enhancing Internet Search Abilities for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Sri Lanka

  Theja K. Arachchi, Laurianne Sitbon, Jinglan Zhang, Ruwan Gamage, Priyantha Hewagamage (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This study examines how young adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) in Sri Lanka, who had never previously used the Internet, learned to perform web searches using Google in their native Sinhala language. Ten participants aged 18-30 from two spe…

  • intellectual disabilities
  • web search
  • digital literacy
  • eLearning
  • cognitive accessibility
  • developing countries
  • health information
  • participatory design
  • Global South

• Investigating Best Practices for Remote Summative Usability Testing with People with Mild to Moderate Dementia

  Rachel Wood, Emma Dixon, Salma Elsayed-Ali, Ekta Shokeen, Amanda Lazar, Jonathan Lazar (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This study is the first to examine best practices for conducting remote summative usability testing with people who have mild to moderate dementia, independent of their caregivers. The research included 15 participants (5 pilot, 10 main study) with a…

  • dementia
  • usability testing
  • remote research
  • cognitive accessibility
  • older adults
  • research methods
  • user research
  • summative evaluation

• Addressing Accessibility Barriers in Programming for People with Visual Impairments: A Literature Review

  Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, Stephanie Ludi (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This systematic literature review analyzes 70 papers published between 2000-2020 examining accessibility barriers in programming for people with visual impairments and proposed solutions. The review covers both professional programmers and students l…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • programming
  • IDE accessibility
  • screen readers
  • code navigation
  • block-based programming
  • tangible programming
  • computer science education
  • literature review