Literature Reviews

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

• Designing Beneath the Surface of the Web

  Sarah Horton (2006) — Proceedings of the 2006 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper reframes web accessibility as fundamentally a source code design problem, arguing that designers focus almost exclusively on the visual "surface" of web pages — colors, typography, layouts — while neglecting the underlying code layer that …

  • semantic HTML
  • web design
  • universal usability
  • nonvisual access
  • screen readers
  • mobile accessibility
  • document structure
  • design principles

• Do Text Transcoders Improve Usability for Disabled Users?

  Giorgio Brajnik, Daniela Cancila, Daniela Nicoli, Mery Pignatelli (2005) — Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the first scientific user study examining whether text transcoders — proxy-based systems that dynamically transform web pages into text-only versions — actually improve usability for disabled users. Text transcoders strip images, …

  • text transcoding
  • usability testing
  • accessibility overlays
  • screen readers
  • low vision
  • motor disability
  • content adaptation
  • user study

• Designing for Auditory Web Access: Accessibility and Cellphone Users

  Shari Trewin, Rachel Bellamy, John Thomas, Jonathan Brezin, John Richards, Cal Swart, Bonnie E. John (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper draws a parallel between two groups of web users who experience the web primarily through auditory rather than visual interaction: people with visual impairments using screen readers, and people in developing regions accessing the web thro…

  • auditory interaction
  • screen readers
  • mobile accessibility
  • developing regions
  • digital divide
  • simulation tools
  • design methodology
  • user-centered design
  • cognitive modeling

• WAI-ARIA live regions: eBuddy IM as a case example

  Peter Thiessen, Stephen Hockema (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents a practical case study of implementing WAI-ARIA live regions in eBuddy, a web-based instant messaging application with over 100 million users that aggregated popular IM networks into a single browser client. The paper addresses th…

  • WAI-ARIA
  • live regions
  • screen readers
  • dynamic content
  • instant messaging
  • Rich Internet Applications
  • blind users
  • AJAX

• Augment browsing and standard profiling for enhancing web accessibility

  Silvia Mirri, Paola Salomoni, Catia Prandi (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents GAPforAPE (GreaseMonkey And Profiling for Accessible Pages Enhancement), a client-side system that automatically transcodes web content to meet individual users' accessibility needs and preferences. The system is built as a Firefo…

  • content transcoding
  • user profiling
  • browser extensions
  • social media accessibility
  • personalization
  • client-side adaptation
  • screen readers
  • low vision

• Evaluating Accessibility-in-Use

  Markel Vigo, Simon Harper (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces a novel method for evaluating web accessibility that goes beyond traditional guideline conformance testing. The authors argue that standards like WCAG 2.0 capture only about 53% of accessibility problems experienced by users, mi…

  • accessibility evaluation
  • user interaction
  • behavioural analysis
  • screen readers
  • blind and low vision
  • automated testing
  • conformance testing
  • user experience

• 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

• 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

• Improving accessibility to mathematical formulas: the Wikipedia math accessor

  Leo Ferres, Jose Fuentes Sepúlveda (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents MathAcc, an assistive technology system that generates natural language descriptions in Spanish for the more than 355,000 mathematical formulas found across 26,174 Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia renders formulas as rasterised PNG i…

  • mathematical accessibility
  • blindness
  • natural language generation
  • MathML
  • Wikipedia
  • STEM accessibility
  • multilingual accessibility
  • screen readers

• JustSpeak: enabling universal voice control on Android

  Yu Zhong, T. V. Raman, Casey Burkhardt, Fadi Biadsy, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper introduces JustSpeak, a universal voice control system for Android that works across all applications without requiring any developer intervention. Unlike Google Now or Siri, which only support pre-defined commands for specific apps, JustS…

  • voice interface
  • mobile accessibility
  • blindness
  • motor accessibility
  • Android
  • speech recognition
  • screen readers
  • assistive technology