Literature Reviews

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

• Towards the Usage of Pauses in Audio-Described Videos

  Benoît Encelle, Magali Ollagnier Beldame, Yannick Prié (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper explores the use of "artificial pauses" — brief interruptions inserted into video playback — as a technique for delivering audio descriptions that cannot fit within the natural gaps in a video's soundtrack. Classical audio description is c…

  • audio description
  • video accessibility
  • blindness
  • visual impairment
  • multimedia accessibility
  • speech synthesis

• A Mobile Interactive Maps Application for a Visually Impaired Audience

  Nikolaos Kaklanis, Konstantinos Votis, Dimitrios Tzovaras (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents "Open Touch/Sound Maps," an Android mobile application that makes interactive maps accessible to visually impaired and blind users through multimodal feedback. Web-based spatial information resources like OpenStreetMap are in…

  • visual impairment
  • accessible maps
  • sonification
  • haptic feedback
  • mobile accessibility
  • multimodal interaction
  • text-to-speech
  • blindness
  • navigation

• DysWebxia 2.0! More Accessible Text for People with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Clara Bayarri, Azuki Gòrriz, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Saurabh Gupta, Gaurang Kanvinde, Horacio Saggion, Stefan Bott, Roberto Carlini, Vasile Topac (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper introduces DysWebxia 2.0, a model for making text more accessible to people with dyslexia by modifying both the presentation and content of text. The project is notable for being the first model to combine text presentation changes (f…

  • dyslexia
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • assistive technology
  • text presentation
  • cognitive accessibility
  • browser extension
  • natural language processing

• Simplify or Help? Text Simplification Strategies for People with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Stefan Bott, Horacio Saggion (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper evaluates two automatic lexical simplification strategies designed to make text more accessible for people with dyslexia. The research addresses a key gap: while previous tools for dyslexic readers focused on text presentation (fonts, spac…

  • dyslexia
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • cognitive accessibility
  • eye tracking
  • lexical simplification
  • natural language processing
  • user study

• Web accessibility snapshot: an effort to reveal coding guidelines conformance

  Vagner Figueredo de Santana, Rogério Abreu de Paula (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the first iteration of the Web Accessibility Snapshot (WAS) project, a large-scale automated evaluation of web accessibility conformance across two sets of 1,000 websites each: the Alexa top 1,000 most popular sites and a randomly…

  • automated testing
  • WCAG compliance
  • web accessibility
  • accessibility metrics
  • web standards
  • large-scale evaluation

• Adapting data table to improve web accessibility

  Pauli P. Y. Lai (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper addresses the challenge of making web data tables accessible to screen reader users, particularly when tables are not properly marked up with semantic HTML tags like <th>, <thead>, and <tfoot>. Screen readers present content linearly, so l…

  • blindness
  • screen readers
  • data tables
  • content adaptation
  • web accessibility
  • mobile accessibility
  • information architecture

• About the relevance of accessibility barriers in the everyday interactions of older people with the web

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

  This paper reports findings from a remarkable 3-year ethnographic study (2005-2008) of 388 older people (aged 65-80) using web and computer technologies in their daily lives at the Àgora adult centre in Barcelona. Unlike most accessibility research t…

  • aging
  • ethnography
  • web accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • mouse interaction
  • digital literacy
  • user research
  • inclusive design

• Facilita: reading assistance to the functionally illiterate

  Willian Massami Watanabe (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents Facilita, a web application that uses natural language processing (NLP) to automatically simplify Portuguese web content for functionally illiterate users. In Brazil, 21.7% of the population aged 15 and over is…

  • literacy
  • cognitive accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • Portuguese
  • multilingual accessibility
  • digital inclusion

• An analysis of personalized web accessibility

  Nádia Fernandes, Nikolaos Kaklanis, Konstantinos Votis, Dimitrios Tzovaras, Luís Carriço (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents an experimental study comparing generic (all-disabilities) web accessibility evaluations with personalized evaluations tailored to specific disability profiles. Using the WaaT (Web Accessibility Assessment Tool) evaluator, the aut…

  • accessibility testing
  • automated evaluation
  • personalization
  • accessibility metrics
  • WCAG compliance
  • disability profiles

• Helping students keep up with real-time captions by pausing and highlighting

  Walter S. Lasecki, Raja Kushalnagar, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem with real-time captioning for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students: the mismatch between speaking rates (approximately 170 words per minute) and reading rates, which causes students to fall progressively …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • captioning
  • real-time captioning
  • education
  • inclusive classrooms
  • reading speed
  • gaze switching