Literature Reviews

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

• EnTable: Rewriting Web Data Sets as Accessible Tables

  Steven Gardiner, Anthony Tomasic, John Zimmerman (2015) — ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  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…

  • web accessibility
  • crowdsourcing
  • screen readers
  • data tables
  • transcoding
  • HTML tables
  • browser extension
  • remote sighted assistance

• Tag Thunder: Towards Non-Visual Web Page Skimming

  Elena Manishina, Jean-Marc Lecarpentier, Fabrice Maurel, Stéphane Ferrari, Maxence Busson (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This demonstration paper presents Tag Thunder, an audio equivalent of visual tag clouds designed to bring skimming capabilities to blind web users. When sighted people access a web page, they first skim the content — rapidly scanning layout, typograp…

  • blindness
  • screen reader
  • web accessibility
  • speech
  • natural language processing
  • sonification
  • auditory interface
  • content accessibility

• Should I Trust It When I Cannot See It? Credibility Assessment for Blind Web Users

  Ali Abdolrahmani, Ravi Kuber (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper examines how blind screen reader users assess the credibility of web content compared to sighted users, revealing fundamental differences in credibility assessment strategies between the two groups. Web credibility — the believability of i…

  • blindness
  • screen reader
  • web accessibility
  • web design
  • usability
  • information access
  • user research
  • security

• Speed-Dial: A Surrogate Mouse for Non-Visual Web Browsing

  Syed Masum Billah, Vikas Ashok, Donald E. Porter, IV Ramakrishnan (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper presents Speed-Dial, a system that uses an off-the-shelf Microsoft Surface Dial as a surrogate mouse for non-visual web browsing. The core problem it addresses is the fundamental mismatch between how sighted and blind users interact with t…

  • screen readers
  • web accessibility
  • blindness
  • haptic technology
  • input devices
  • semantic web
  • assistive technology
  • non-visual interaction

• The Effects of "Not Knowing What You Don't Know" on Web Accessibility for Blind Web Users

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Irene Lin, Saiph Savage (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper introduces and empirically investigates the concept of "Not Knowing What You Don't Know" (NKWYDK) in the context of blind web users. When a blind person encounters difficulty finding information on a web page, they face a fundamental uncer…

  • web accessibility
  • screen readers
  • blindness
  • usability
  • information foraging
  • user research

• Good Background Colors for Readers: A Study of People with and without Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper presents the first large-scale user study measuring the effect of background colors on screen readability for people with and without dyslexia, providing empirical evidence for the widely recommended but previously unvalidated practice of …

  • dyslexia
  • readability
  • color contrast
  • reading accessibility
  • visual design
  • web accessibility
  • typography
  • Meares-Irlen syndrome

• Predictive Link Following Plug-In For Web Browsers

  Lyle Pierson Stachecki, John Magee (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper presents the first public release of a target-aware pointing assistance plug-in for web browsers that uses Predictive Link Following to help people with motor impairments select links on web pages. Web browsing is challenging…

  • motor accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • mouse replacement interface
  • eye tracking
  • assistive technology
  • pointing assistance
  • browser extension
  • input methods

• BrowseWithMe: An Online Clothes Shopping Assistant for People with Visual Impairments

  Abigale J. Stangl, Esha Kothari, Suyog D. Jain, Tom Yeh, Kristen Grauman, Danna Gurari (2018) — Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2018)

  This paper from the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Texas at Austin addresses the inaccessibility of online clothes shopping for people with visual impairments through both empirical investigation and a prototype AI-powered assistant…

  • blindness
  • low vision
  • web accessibility
  • online shopping
  • computer vision
  • artificial intelligence
  • image description
  • screen reader
  • alt text
  • semantic segmentation

• Tension, what tension?: Website accessibility and visual design

  Helen Petrie, Fraser Hamilton, Neil King (2004) — Proceedings of the 2004 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from City University London directly challenges the widespread belief among web designers that accessible websites must be visually plain and boring. The researchers conducted a large-scale evaluation of 100 websites, starting with automat…

  • visual design
  • user testing
  • web accessibility
  • usability
  • disability
  • WCAG compliance
  • accessibility evaluation

• Extracting content from accessible web pages

  Suhit Gupta, Gail Kaiser (2005) — Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Columbia University presents Crunch, a web proxy tool that applies heuristic-based filters to extract core content from web pages by removing clutter such as advertisements, navigation menus, spacer elements, and extraneous links. Cru…

  • content extraction
  • screen readers
  • web clutter
  • DOM
  • web proxy
  • visual impairment
  • web accessibility