Literature Reviews

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

• Describing online videos with text-to-speech narration

  Masatomo Kobayashi, Tohru Nagano, Kentarou Fukuda, Hironobu Takagi (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo presents a technology platform that uses text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis to add audio descriptions (AD) to online videos at minimal cost. The system addresses the two main barriers that prevent most online video crea…

  • audio description
  • text-to-speech
  • video accessibility
  • speech synthesis
  • external metadata
  • visual impairment
  • assistive technology

• AChecker: open, interactive, customizable, web accessibility checking

  Greg Gay, Cindy Qi Li (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces AChecker, an open-source web accessibility checker developed at the University of Toronto's Adaptive Technology Resource Centre. AChecker was designed to address two fundamental shortcomings of existing accessibility evaluation …

  • automated testing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • open source
  • WCAG compliance
  • accessibility tools

• Towards collaborative annotation for video accessibility

  Pierre-Antoine Champin, Benoît Encelle, Nicholas W. D. Evans, Magali O.-Beldame, Yannick Prié, Raphaël Troncy (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the ACAV (Collaborative Annotation for Video Accessibility) project, a French research initiative involving Dailymotion, the University of Lyon (LIRIS), and EURECOM, aimed at making web video accessible to blind and deaf users thr…

  • video accessibility
  • audio description
  • captioning
  • crowdsourcing
  • speech recognition
  • Braille
  • multimodal interaction
  • semantic web
  • collaborative annotation

• Social accessibility: the challenge of improving web accessibility through collaboration

  Daisuke Sato, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Social Accessibility, a collaborative project from IBM Research Tokyo that enlists volunteers to fix web accessibility problems reported by visually impaired users. The system works through a three-step process: blind users encoun…

  • crowdsourcing
  • screen readers
  • alternative text
  • visual impairment
  • social computing
  • collaborative accessibility
  • external metadata

• Developing countries; developing experiences: approaches to accessibility for the real world

  Brian Kelly, Sarah Lewthwaite, David Sloan (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper critically examines the limitations of relying solely on technical accessibility guidelines like WCAG to achieve digital inclusion, particularly in the context of developing countries. The authors argue that the WAI model — which depends o…

  • accessibility policy
  • social inclusion
  • disability studies
  • WCAG limitations
  • developing countries
  • digital divide
  • cognitive accessibility

• Tailored presentation of dynamic content

  Andy Brown, Caroline Jay, Simon Harper (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the SASWAT browser, a research prototype built as a self-voicing extension to Firefox (based on Fire Vox), designed to address a fundamental challenge of the Web 2.0 era: how should screen readers notify users about dynamic page u…

  • screen readers
  • dynamic content
  • AJAX
  • Web 2.0
  • eye tracking
  • ARIA live regions
  • assistive technology

• An Integrative Accessibility Engineering Approach Using Multidimensional Classifications of Barriers in the Web

  Diana Ruth-Janneck (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents multidimensional classifications of web accessibility barriers derived from the large-scale German study "Web2.0/Accessible," commissioned by Aktion Mensch, which surveyed 671 disabled internet users via an accessible online quest…

  • accessibility barriers
  • accessibility evaluation
  • user research
  • web accessibility
  • software engineering
  • organizational accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • deaf accessibility

• Crosschecking the Mobile Web for People with Visual Impairments

  Luís Carriço, Rui Lopes, Rogério Bandeira (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper proposes a framework for evaluating mobile web accessibility for specific disability profiles by coherently merging three sets of guidelines: WCAG (web accessibility), W3C Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP), and disability classifications fr…

  • mobile accessibility
  • blind and low vision
  • WCAG compliance
  • accessibility evaluation
  • web standards
  • user research

• Towards a Universal Accessibility for Textual Information

  Vasile Topac (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This student award paper from Politehnica University Timisoara proposes a universal framework for understanding and addressing textual information accessibility across all media formats and contexts — not just web accessibility, but also document acc…

  • content adaptation
  • cloud computing
  • text-to-speech
  • speech recognition
  • multilingual accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • plain language
  • accessibility frameworks

• Farfalla Project: Browser-Based Accessibility Solutions

  Andrea Mangiatordi, Harpreet Singh Sareen (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Farfalla, a free and open-source project from the University of Milano Bicocca that provides cloud-based assistive technology through the browser, eliminating the need for locally installed software. The core insight is that tradi…

  • assistive technology
  • cloud computing
  • web accessibility
  • accessibility tools
  • browser extension
  • low vision
  • text-to-speech
  • crowdsourcing
  • open source