Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
21 results found tagged interaction design.
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"But, I Don't Want/Need a Power Wheelchair": Toward Accessible Power Assistance for Manual Wheelchairs
This paper explores the needs, expectations, and experiences of manual wheelchair users regarding power assist devices — motorized attachments that augment a manual wheelchair's propulsion without converting it into a full power wheelchair. Manual wh…
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Improving Smartphone Accessibility with Personalizable Static Overlays
This paper addresses a fundamental usability problem for blind smartphone users: the loss of interface consistency that occurred when physical keypad phones gave way to touchscreen smartphones. Feature phones had tactually recognizable keys, simpler …
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Designing Interactions for 3D Printed Models with Blind People
This paper investigates how blind people explore 3D printed models and what interaction techniques they prefer for interactive 3D printed models (I3Ms) — physical models augmented with sensors that provide audio descriptions when touched. While 3D pr…
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Action Blocks: Making Mobile Technology Accessible for People with Cognitive Disabilities
This demonstration paper presents Action Blocks, an Android application developed by Google that simplifies mobile device interactions for people with cognitive disabilities. The app allows users or their caregivers to create customizable one-tap but…
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Nearmi: A Framework for Designing Point of Interest Techniques for VR Users with Limited Mobility
Virtual reality presents significant accessibility barriers for people with limited mobility, yet relatively little research has addressed how to make VR navigation and exploration usable for this population. Franz et al. introduce Nearmi, a design f…
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Understanding the Touchscreen-based Nonvisual Target Acquisition Task Performance of Screen Reader Users
This study investigates how screen reader users find and select targets on a smartphone touchscreen without visual cues, examining the effects of screen size, target size, and the ratio between them. Twelve participants with visual impairments (three…
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Touchpad Mapper: Exploring Non-Visual Touchpad Interactions for Screen-Reader Users
This technical note introduces Touchpad Mapper, a system that repurposes the laptop touchpad — a widely available but underutilized input device for screen-reader users — as a spatial interface for exploring 2D digital content non-visually. The autho…
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How Accessible are Virtual Reality Freehand Gestures? Understanding Barriers for Users with Upper Limb Motor Impairments
This paper provides the first empirical examination of how accessible default freehand gesture implementations in virtual reality are for people with upper limb motor impairments. The researchers recruited 8 adults with conditions including lupus, rh…
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Crippin' WhatsApp's Interaction Design: Learnings from the blind/visually impaired users of India
This paper examines how blind and visually impaired users in India navigate WhatsApp, using critical disability studies and Roland Barthes' concept of myth to argue that WhatsApp's design naturalizes visual interaction as universal while marginalizin…
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Increasing the Accessibility of Pen-Based Technology: An Investigation of Age-Related Target Acquisition Difficulties
This paper describes dissertation research on improving the accessibility of pen-based devices (PDAs, Tablet PCs) for older adults by identifying and addressing the root causes of target acquisition difficulty. The author argues that previous researc…