Literature Reviews

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

• 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

• A Syntactic Analysis of Accessibility to a Corpus of Statistical Graphs

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Livia Sumegi, Louis Boucher, Martin Lachance, Gitte Lindgaard (2008) — Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada tackles a persistent accessibility challenge: making statistical graphs accessible to blind and visually impaired users. The authors analysed a corpus of 120 real-world statistical graphs from…

  • data visualization
  • graph accessibility
  • blind and low vision
  • alt text
  • knowledge representation
  • automated accessibility
  • statistical graphics

• Providing Access to the High-Level Content of Line Graphs from Online Popular Media

  Priscilla S. Moraes, Sandra Carberry, Kathleen McCoy (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper extends the Interactive SIGHT (Summarizing Information Graphics Textually) system to generate natural language summaries of line graphs found in online popular media articles, making their high-level content accessible to visually impaired…

  • data visualization
  • visual impairment
  • natural language generation
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers
  • image accessibility
  • information graphics
  • alt text

• Unlocking the Potential of Web Localizers as Contributors to Image Accessibility: What Do Evaluation Tools Have to Offer?

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the role of web localization professionals (translators) in maintaining image accessibility when websites are adapted for different language audiences. The author identifies a significant gap: when websites are localized from …

  • image accessibility
  • text alternatives
  • web localization
  • accessibility evaluation tools
  • quality assurance
  • multilingual accessibility
  • alt text

• Acrolinx: A Controlled-Language Checker Turned into an Accessibility Evaluation Tool for Image Text Alternatives

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez, Sabine Lehmann (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a novel application of controlled-language checking technology to a persistent accessibility problem: evaluating the quality of image text alternatives, not just their presence. The authors observe that while most web accessibilit…

  • alt text
  • image accessibility
  • automated testing
  • controlled language
  • natural language processing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • web accessibility
  • content quality

• Semiotics Contributions to Accessible Interface Design

  María Inés Laitano (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract argues that semiotic theory — the study of signs and meaning-making — can complement WCAG-based approaches to produce more meaningfully accessible interfaces. Laitano contrasts the WAI model, which centres on content (informati…

  • semiotics
  • interface design
  • WCAG
  • alt text
  • communication strategy
  • auditory icons
  • accessible design
  • design theory

• AIDE: An Automatic Image Description Engine for Review Imagery

  Rachana Sreedhar, Nicole Tan, Jingyue Zhang, Kim Jin, Spencer Gregson, Eli Moreta-Feliz, Niveditha Samudrala, Shrenik Sadalgi (2022) — Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from Wayfair presents AIDE, a multimodal machine learning system that automatically generates contextual alt-text for user-submitted review images in e-commerce — a category of imagery that is particularly inaccessible because it is user-g…

  • alt text
  • computer vision
  • blindness
  • visual impairment
  • screen readers
  • machine learning
  • natural language processing
  • image accessibility
  • e-commerce

• Designing Tools for High-Quality Alt Text Authoring

  Kelly Mack, Edward Cutrell, Bongshin Lee, Meredith Ringel Morris (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper investigates how to improve the quality of alternative text through better authoring interfaces and feedback mechanisms for automatic alt text, focusing on Microsoft PowerPoint as the application context. The researchers built and tested f…

  • alt text
  • image accessibility
  • screen readers
  • authoring tools
  • automatic alt text
  • computer vision
  • content accessibility
  • user interface design

• "That's in the eye of the beholder": Layers of Interpretation in Image Descriptions for Fictional Representations of People with Disabilities

  Emory James Edwards, Kyle Lewis Polster, Isabel Tuason, Emily Blank, Michael Gilbert, Stacy Branham (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper investigates how to create accurate and sensitive image descriptions for fictional representations of people with disabilities — a challenge that arises when real subjects cannot be consulted about their preferred identity terminology. The…

  • image accessibility
  • alt text
  • image descriptions
  • disability representation
  • design systems
  • ableism
  • blind and low vision
  • co-design
  • identity

• A Dataset of Alt Texts from HCI Publications: Analyses and Uses Towards Producing More Descriptive Alt Texts of Data Visualizations in Scientific Papers

  Sanjana Shivani Chintalapati, Jonathan Bragg, Lucy Lu Wang (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper examines the quality and availability of alt text for data visualizations in scientific publications, focusing on papers from the HCI and accessibility communities (CHI and ASSETS conferences, 2010-2020). The authors processed over 25,000 …

  • alt text
  • data visualization
  • scientific documents
  • blind and low vision
  • document accessibility
  • machine learning
  • natural language processing
  • dataset