Literature Reviews

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

• TaskAudit: Detecting Functiona11ity Errors in Mobile Apps via Agentic Task Execution

  Mingyuan Zhong, Xia Chen, Davin Win Kyi, Chen Li, James Fogarty, Jacob O. Wobbrock (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper introduces TaskAudit, an automated accessibility evaluation system for mobile apps that detects what the authors coin 'functiona11ity errors' — accessibility barriers that only manifest through interaction, where a UI's static sta…

  • mobile accessibility
  • accessibility auditing
  • automated accessibility testing
  • generative agents
  • large language models
  • screen readers
  • TalkBack
  • WCAG
  • Android
  • agentic AI

• Bridging the Gap between Automated Intervention and Actual User Experience: A Mixed-Methods Study on Mobile Accessibility Issues for Screen Reader Users

  Syed Fatiul Huq, Ziyao He, Yirui He, Sam Malek (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper by Huq, He, He, and Malek (UC Irvine) argues that existing automated accessibility testing tools for mobile apps do not faithfully represent what blind screen reader users actually experience, and proposes a user-aware categorisat…

  • mobile accessibility
  • screen readers
  • TalkBack
  • automated accessibility testing
  • software accessibility
  • accessibility user testing
  • Android accessibility
  • WCAG
  • systematic literature review
  • blindness and low vision

• A11yExtensions: Accessibility Extensions to Augment Mobile AI Assistive Technology In-Situ

  Jaylin Herskovitz, Ellie Seehorn, Ather Jammoa, Jason Meddaugh, Anhong Guo (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  A11yExtensions introduces the concept of in-situ extensions for mobile AI assistive technology — add-on services that augment existing deployed applications like Seeing AI, Be My AI, and Lookout with additional features, without modifying or replacin…

  • blind and low vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • AI assistive technology
  • co-design
  • automation
  • in-situ
  • camera aiming
  • AI verification
  • iOS
  • research through design

• Designing Adaptive User Interfaces for mHealth Applications Targeting Chronic Disease: A User-Centered Approach

  Wei Wang, John Grundy, Hourieh Khalajzadeh, Anuradha Madugalla, Humphrey O. Obie (2026) — ACM Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology

  This paper from Monash and Deakin Universities addresses a persistent gap in mHealth design: most chronic disease self-management apps treat users as a homogeneous group, ignoring the wide variation in capabilities, health status, cultural background…

  • mHealth
  • adaptive user interfaces
  • chronic disease
  • accessibility
  • user-centered design
  • mobile accessibility
  • guidelines
  • self-management

• Towards Testing the Accessibility of Dynamic Visual Changes in Android Mobile GUI with Multi-Modal LLMs

  Mengxi Zhang, Jianlin Yu, Chen Xu, Jiqun Li, Xinglong Yin, Huaxiao Liu (2026) — ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

  This paper addresses a long-standing gap in mobile accessibility testing: dynamic visual changes in Android GUIs that communicate task status or feedback to sighted users but are invisible to blind users of screen readers such as TalkBack. Examples i…

  • Android
  • mobile accessibility
  • screen readers
  • TalkBack
  • automated testing
  • large language models
  • GPT-4o
  • blind users
  • dynamic content
  • GUI testing
  • prompt engineering

• Deaf Individuals' Views on Speaking Behaviors of Hearing Peers when Using an Automatic Captioning App

  Matthew Seita, Matt Huenerfauth (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20)

  This CHI 2020 Late-Breaking Work paper investigates what behaviors hearing speakers should ideally exhibit when holding in-person conversations with Deaf or deaf people using an Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) captioning app on a mobile device. Th…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • captioning
  • captions
  • speaking behavior
  • mobile accessibility
  • communication
  • user research
  • accessibility research

• Accessible Photo Album: Enhancing the Photo Sharing Experience for People with Visual Impairment

  Susumu Harada, Daisuke Sato, Dustin W. Adams, Sri Kurniawan, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2013) — Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13)

  This paper investigates how blind and partially sighted people can be supported not only in capturing photographs but in organising, recalling, and sharing them afterwards — a step that the authors argue has been largely neglected in prior blind-phot…

  • blindness and low vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • photography
  • audiophotography
  • screen readers
  • non-visual interaction
  • eyes-free interaction
  • social accessibility
  • multimedia accessibility

• NavCog: A Navigational Cognitive Assistant for the Blind

  Dragan Ahmetovic, Cole Gleason, Chengxiong Ruan, Kris Kitani, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services (MobileHCI '16)

  This paper introduces NavCog, an iPhone-based turn-by-turn navigation assistant designed to guide blind users through unfamiliar indoor and outdoor environments without requiring expensive infrastructure or structural modifications. The authors argue…

  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • wayfinding
  • orientation and mobility
  • assistive technology
  • mobile accessibility
  • turn-by-turn navigation
  • bluetooth low energy
  • localization
  • points of interest
  • blindness and low vision

• Modeling Expertise in Assistive Navigation Interfaces for Blind People

  Eshed Ohn-Bar, João Guerreiro, Dragan Ahmetovic, Kris M. Kitani, Chieko Asakawa (2018) — Proceedings of the 23rd International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI)

  This short IUI paper asks a question most assistive-navigation research leaves unasked: what happens as a blind user becomes an expert on a route? Existing smartphone guidance apps deliver the same instruction set on a user's tenth trip down a corrid…

  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • turn-by-turn navigation
  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • assistive technology
  • personalization
  • adaptive interface
  • user modeling
  • machine learning
  • deep learning
  • recurrent neural network
  • LSTM
  • route learning
  • mobile accessibility
  • orientation and mobility

• Environmental Factors in Indoor Navigation Based on Real-World Trajectories of Blind Users

  Hernisa Kacorri, Eshed Ohn-Bar, Kris M. Kitani, Chieko Asakawa (2018) — Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper addresses a methodological blind spot in blind-navigation research: studies typically report localization accuracy and completion time, but say almost nothing about how the physical environment itself shapes where users go wrong. The autho…

  • indoor navigation
  • turn-by-turn navigation
  • blindness
  • visual impairment
  • assistive technology
  • orientation and mobility
  • trajectory analysis
  • wayfinding
  • mobile accessibility
  • built environment
  • Bluetooth Low Energy
  • tactile paving
  • evaluation methods
  • research methodology