Literature Reviews

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

• 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

• Measuring Text Simplification with the Crowd

  Walter S. Lasecki, Luz Rello, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates whether non-expert crowd workers can reliably evaluate the simplicity of English text, addressing a key gap in text simplification research. Text simplification — reducing the lexical and syntactic complexity of sentences whil…

  • text simplification
  • crowdsourcing
  • natural language processing
  • readability
  • cognitive accessibility
  • plain language

• Evaluation of DysWebxia: A Reading App Designed for People with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Ricardo Baeza-Yates (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the evaluation of DysWebxia, an iOS reading application specifically designed for people with dyslexia. The app integrates evidence-based text presentation features known to improve reading performance for people with dyslexia — i…

  • dyslexia
  • reading accessibility
  • text simplification
  • lexical simplification
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • natural language processing
  • personalization

• A plug-in to aid online reading in Spanish

  Luz Rello, Roberto Carlini, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents CASSA, a free Chrome browser plug-in designed to help people read Spanish text on the web by providing simpler synonyms and definitions on demand for complex words. The tool builds on the CASSA (Context Aware Synonym Simplificatio…

  • text simplification
  • lexical simplification
  • dyslexia
  • cognitive accessibility
  • readability
  • browser extension
  • assistive technology
  • Spanish language

• Able to Read My Mail: An Accessible e-Mail Client with Assistive Technology

  Horacio Saggion, Daniel Ferrés, Leen Sevens, Ineke Schuurman, Marta Ripollés, Olga Rodríguez (2017) — Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Kolumba, an accessible web-based email client developed as part of the EU-funded Able to Include project, specifically designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). The tool addresses a critical gap in…

  • intellectual disability
  • cognitive accessibility
  • text simplification
  • pictograph communication
  • workplace accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • assistive technology
  • user-centred design

• A Review of 25 Years of Human-Computer Interaction Research on Reading Support Technologies for People with Disabilities Published in the ACM Digital Library

  Oliver Alonzo, Saad Hassan (2025) — ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This systematic literature review analyzes 101 HCI publications from ACM venues spanning 2000 to 2024 that focus on reading support technologies for people with disabilities. The authors developed a comprehensive coding rubric covering publication me…

  • systematic literature review
  • reading support
  • reading disability
  • dyslexia
  • blind or low vision
  • deaf or hard of hearing
  • intellectual disability
  • cognitive disability
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • reading comprehension
  • braille literacy
  • assistive technology
  • web accessibility

• Design and Evaluation of an Automatic Text Simplification Prototype with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Readers

  Oliver Alonzo, Sooyeon Lee, Akhter Al Amin, Mounica Maddela, Wei Xu, Matt Huenerfauth (2024) — ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the design preferences and interactions of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) readers with automatic text simplification (ATS) tools. Many DHH individuals who use sign language as their primary language experience English as a sec…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • text simplification
  • reading accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • lexical simplification
  • syntactic simplification
  • plain language
  • user study