Literature Reviews

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

• Three Modalities, Two Design Probes, One Prototype, and No Vision: Experience-Based Co-Design of a Multi-modal 3D Data Visualization Tool

  Sanchita S. Kamath, Aziz N. Zeidieh, Venkatesh Potluri, Sile O'Modhrain, Kenneth Perry, JooYoung Seo (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Kamath et al. report an Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) process in which five blind or low-vision (BLV) researchers and one sighted collaborator built a web-native, multimodal prototype for exploring 3D surface plots - a class of visualisation cent…

  • blind and low vision
  • data visualization
  • 3D visualization
  • sonification
  • spatial audio
  • tactile graphics
  • experience-based co-design
  • multimodal interaction
  • STEM accessibility
  • non-visual interaction
  • participatory design
  • co-design
  • web accessibility

• Towards Accessible Mobility Support: User-Centered Design of a Passive, Multi-Functional, Low-Cost Knee Exoskeleton

  Yuyu Lin, Yujia Liu, Emma Kim, Alexandra Ion (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Lin et al. (Carnegie Mellon) propose a fully passive, unpowered knee exoskeleton that aims to sit in the gap between two unsatisfying options currently available to people with mobility impairments: static knee-ankle-foot orthoses (KAFOs), which are …

  • exoskeleton
  • orthosis
  • knee brace
  • mobility
  • rehabilitation
  • gait
  • wearable technology
  • assistive technology
  • user-centered design
  • HCI fabrication
  • stance-control orthosis
  • low-cost assistive technology
  • participatory design

• When Assistive Technologies become Provocations: Unpacking Access in HCI practices using Crip Technoscience, Mouth Interfaces, and XR

  Puneet Jain, Ayush Sharma, Sidharth Chaudhary, Vivek Rawat, Akhilesh Kumar Bhagat, Kratika Jain, Christian Bayerlein, Christopher Lloyd Salter, Gowdham Prabhakar (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper reframes assistive technology as political provocation rather than technical fix. Developed in long-term collaboration with two disabled artists - Eric Desrosiers (muscular dystrophy) and Christian Bayerlein (spinal muscular atrop…

  • crip technoscience
  • extended reality
  • XR accessibility
  • mouth interface
  • provocation
  • assistive technology
  • disability-led design
  • ableism
  • HCI research methods
  • activist design
  • participatory design
  • disability justice
  • critical disability studies

• Access in the Shadow of Ableism: An Autoethnography of a Blind Student's Higher Education Experience in China

  Xinru Tang, Weijun Zhang (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper is a collaborative autoethnography written by Xinru Tang and Weijun Zhang, in which Zhang - a blind graduate student who completed his undergraduate work in a specialized program for blind and low-vision (BLV) students at "University A" in…

  • blind and low vision
  • higher education
  • autoethnography
  • ableism
  • disability studies
  • china
  • non-weird
  • critical disability studies
  • screen readers

• Resilience to Disruption: Accessible Navigation for People with Visual Impairment

  Trevor Cross, Ishani Pandey, Sophia S Jit, Robert Soden, Priyank Chandra (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper investigates how people with visual impairments (PwVI) actually navigate urban environments, especially during severe weather events such as snowstorms, high winds, and icy conditions, and how digital navigation technologies do or do not s…

  • blind and low vision
  • navigation
  • wayfinding
  • orientation and mobility
  • crisis informatics
  • resilience
  • journey mapping
  • assistive technology
  • crip time

• Reclaiming VR Design Authority: Deaf Signers Shaping Immersive Classrooms

  Shuxu Huffman, Laura South, Matthew James Buckman, Raja Kushalnagar, Francisco Raul Ortega, Abraham Glasser (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports a Deaf-led, ASL-first study of a VR classroom prototype designed to reduce the persistent "visual attention split" that Deaf students experience in remote and online classrooms, where gaze must constantly shuttle between a signing …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • deaf tech
  • virtual reality
  • visual attention split
  • american sign language
  • participatory design
  • education
  • deaf-centered design

• Imagine, Interact: Eliciting Accessible Interactions from Users with Motor Impairments via Imagined Input Devices

  Radu-Daniel Vatavu, Ovidiu-Ciprian Ungurean (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports an end-user gesture elicitation study with eleven participants with upper-body motor impairments - including spinal cord injury, spina bifida, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, Parkinson's, and traumatic brain injury - who were a…

  • motor impairment
  • gesture input
  • end-user elicitation
  • imagined devices
  • ability-based design
  • accessible computing
  • assistive technology

• I-VAMOS: Independent Voting with Accessible Multimodal Offline System for Visually Impaired Users

  Gyeongdeok Kim, Chungman Lim, Gyungmin Jin, Gunhyuk Park (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper introduces I-VAMOS, an offline multimodal voting assistance system designed to enable blind and low-vision (BLV) voters to cast paper ballots independently and secretly. The authors situate their work in the constitutional right to a secre…

  • blind and low vision
  • voting
  • optical character recognition
  • multimodal feedback
  • auditory feedback
  • visual feedback
  • assistive technology
  • civic participation

• Co-Designing Multimodal Systems for Accessible Asynchronous Dance Instruction

  Ujjaini Das, Shreya Kappala, Meng Chen, Mina Huh, Amy Pavel (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper investigates how to design multimodal systems that make asynchronous dance instruction accessible to blind and low vision (BLV) learners. While online exercise videos have proliferated, particularly since COVID-19, dance tutorials rely hea…

  • blind and low vision
  • audio description
  • haptics
  • multimodal instruction
  • co-design
  • dance education
  • video accessibility
  • sound design

• Co-designing MESA-Bot: Enhancing Accessibility, Privacy, Security, and Trust in a Mental Health Chatbot for Older Adults

  Aishwarya Umeshkumar Surani, Sanchari Das (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Surani and Das address the gap between accessibility design and privacy-and-security engineering in mental health chatbots for older adults, a population nearly a billion strong worldwide for whom cost, stigma, wait times, and digital-literacy barrie…

  • older adults
  • mental health
  • chatbot
  • co-design
  • privacy
  • security
  • accessibility
  • trust
  • threat modeling
  • conversational agent