Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
343 results found tagged screen readers.
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In-Page Navigation Aids for Screen-Reader Users with Automatic Topicalisation and Labelling
This paper addresses a fundamental challenge for screen reader users: navigating lengthy web documents that lack proper heading structure. When web pages do not include semantic headings or internal navigation links, users must read content linearly,…
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Exploring Blind and Low-Vision Youth's Digital Access Needs in School: Toward Accessible Instructional Technologies
This mixed methods study investigates how blind and low-vision (BLV) youth ages 13-22 experience technology-mediated learning in US K-12 schools. The author, herself congenitally blind and a former teacher of blind students, conducted semi-structured…
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The Qualities of Convivial Tools and Their Relevance to Music Software Accessibility
This qualitative study explores how visually impaired and blind (VIB) people access digital audio workstations (DAWs) for creative sound work, drawing on Ivan Illich's concept of "convivial tools" to frame accessibility recommendations. The authors c…
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Faster Text-to-Speeches: Enhancing Blind People's Information Scanning with Faster Concurrent Speech
This paper investigates how blind users can scan digital information more efficiently by comparing two approaches: increasing speech rate (the traditional method) versus using concurrent speech (multiple simultaneous voices). The research leverages t…
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Getting Smartphones to Talkback: Understanding the Smartphone Adoption Process of Blind Users
This paper presents an eight-week longitudinal study investigating how novice blind users adopt touchscreen smartphones, transitioning from traditional feature phones. The researchers recruited five legally blind participants (ages 23-55) who had nev…
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The Invisible Work of Accessibility: How Blind Employees Manage Accessibility in Mixed-Ability Workplaces
This qualitative field study examines how blind employees navigate accessibility in shared office environments where they work alongside sighted colleagues. The researchers conducted a multi-session study with five blind office workers (ages 25-54) a…
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READ: A (Research) Platform for Evaluating Non-visual Access Methods to Digital Documents
READ (Documents Architecture REstitution) is a configurable research platform for evaluating alternative methods of non-visual access to digital documents. The system addresses a well-documented problem: despite extensive functionality, screen reader…
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EnTable: Rewriting Web Data Sets as Accessible Tables
This demonstration paper presents EnTable, a crowdsourcing system that transforms visually complex web data presentations into accessible HTML tables. The problem it addresses is fundamental: modern web designers communicate semantic information thro…
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Social Media Platforms for Low-Income Blind People in India
This groundbreaking study provides the first analysis of social media use and non-use by low-income blind people in rural and peri-urban India—a population largely absent from accessibility research despite India having the world's largest blind popu…
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Investigating Microinteractions for People with Visual Impairments and the Potential Role of On-Body Interaction
This paper investigates how well microinteractions — brief, high-frequency mobile tasks that take sighted users only a few seconds to complete — are currently supported for people who are blind or visually impaired (VI). While modern smartphones are …