Literature Reviews

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

• Accessibility Perspectives on Enabling South African Sign Language in the South African National Accessibility Portal

  Louis Coetzee, Guillaume Olivrin, Ilse Viviers (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper investigates the feasibility and effectiveness of embedding animated South African Sign Language (SASL) content into the South African National Accessibility Portal (NAP), a government-backed information sharing platform for the disability…

  • sign language
  • deaf accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • localization
  • South Africa
  • digital divide
  • animated sign language
  • developing countries

• Virtual Teaching in a Society of Learning

  António Eduardo Martins, Felipa Lopes dos Reis (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper examines the transformation of teaching practices in the context of online and distance education, with particular attention to how information and communication technologies reshape the spatial and temporal dimensions of learning. The aut…

  • e-learning
  • distance education
  • blended learning
  • online education
  • collaborative learning
  • virtual teaching

• TeleWeb: accessible service for web browsing via phone

  Yevgen Borodin, Glenn Dausch, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper presents TeleWeb, a telephony service that enables web browsing via any standard telephone using speech and keypad input. Built on top of the HearSay non-visual web browser engine from Stony Brook University, TeleWeb allows users to call a…

  • screen readers
  • voice interface
  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • telephony
  • speech recognition
  • aging
  • web navigation
  • assistive technology

• Getting mobile with mobile devices: using the web to improve transit accessibility

  Darren Minifie, Yvonne Coady (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper proposes a mobile web-based architecture for making public transit accessible to blind and visually impaired travelers. Drawing on direct feedback from the blind community (including one of the authors, who is visually impaired), the paper…

  • mobile accessibility
  • public transportation
  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • GPS
  • wayfinding
  • context-aware computing
  • location awareness
  • accessible transportation

• Prosumers and accessibility: how to ensure a productive interaction

  Yod Samuel Martín García, Beatriz San Miguel González, Juan Carlos Yelmo García (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper examines how accessibility can be ensured in user-generated content (UGC) created by "prosumers" — ordinary web users who both consume and produce content but lack any training, awareness, or accountability regarding accessibility. The aut…

  • user-generated content
  • social media
  • ATAG
  • authoring tools
  • crowdsourcing
  • community accessibility
  • Web 2.0
  • content management systems

• Metrics for accessibility on the Vamolà project

  Silvia Mirri, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Marco Roccetti, Paola Salomoni (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper describes the Vamolà project (Italian acronym for "accessibility validator and monitor"), a collaboration between the University of Bologna and the Emilia Romagna Region that integrates an accessibility validator with a monitoring system d…

  • accessibility metrics
  • accessibility monitoring
  • automated testing
  • Stanca Act
  • accessibility evaluation
  • Italian accessibility law
  • WAB score

• Adapting learning environments with AccessForAll

  Greg Gay, Silvia Mirri, Marco Roccetti, Paola Salomoni (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper describes the first implementation of the ISO FDIS 24751 accessibility standards (and the closely related IMS AccessForAll specifications) in ATutor, an open-source Learning Management System (LMS) developed at the University of Toronto's …

  • e-learning accessibility
  • learning management systems
  • content adaptation
  • personalization
  • ISO 24751
  • IMS AccessForAll
  • open source
  • ATutor
  • inclusive education

• Accessibility for the HTML5 <video> element

  Silvia Pfeiffer, Conrad Parker (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper documents early efforts to standardize how subtitles, captions, and other accessibility data should be associated with the then-new HTML5 <video> element. Written in 2009 when Firefox, Opera, and Safari were just beginning to implement <vi…

  • video accessibility
  • HTML5
  • captioning
  • subtitles
  • web standards
  • timed text
  • open source
  • Ogg

• Evaluation of techniques defined in WCAG 2.0 with older people

  Sergio Sayago, Laura Camacho, Josep Blat (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper evaluates two specific WCAG 2.0 techniques — keyboard-based navigation (Guideline 2.1) and design of link purpose (Guideline 2.4) — with older people aged 65 to 80 in two real-world design projects for old-age pensioner associations in Bar…

  • aging
  • WCAG compliance
  • keyboard accessibility
  • link design
  • user testing
  • usability
  • older adults
  • web navigation

• Augmenting social media accessibility

  Roberto Borrino, Marco Furini, Marco Roccetti (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper presents SOMFA (SOcial Media For All), an architecture that transforms web-based social media content into multimodal audio/video presentations suitable for television sets. The system addresses the growing social divide created by social …

  • social media
  • digital divide
  • aging
  • content adaptation
  • text-to-speech
  • multimodal interaction
  • television accessibility
  • web syndication