Literature Reviews

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

• Comparing Locomotion Techniques in Virtual Reality for People with Upper-Body Motor Impairments

  Rachel L. Franz, Jinghan Yu, Jacob O. Wobbrock (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first empirical study comparing the accessibility of virtual reality locomotion techniques — methods for navigating virtual environments — for people with upper-body motor impairments. Despite over 100 distinct locomotion tech…

  • virtual reality
  • locomotion
  • motor impairments
  • VR accessibility
  • interaction techniques
  • personalization
  • simulator sickness
  • user study

• Understanding Personalized Accessibility through Teachable AI: Designing and Evaluating Find My Things for People who are Blind or Low Vision

  Cecily Morrison, Martin Grayson, Rita Faia Marques, Daniela Massiceti, Camilla Longden, Linda Wen, Edward Cutrell (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper from Microsoft Research presents Find My Things, one of the first fully realized end-to-end teachable AI applications for accessibility. The app allows people who are blind or low vision to teach their phone to recognize personal objects —…

  • teachable AI
  • object recognition
  • blind and low vision
  • personalization
  • few-shot learning
  • computer vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • participatory design

• 30 Years of Solving the Wrong Problem: How Recolouring Tool Design Fails those with Colour Vision Deficiency

  Connor Geddes, David R. Flatla, Ciabhan L. Connelly (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper critically examines three decades of research into recolouring tools — colour filters and daltonization algorithms designed to help people with Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD) differentiate colours — and finds that these tools fundamentally…

  • colour vision deficiency
  • colour blindness
  • recolouring
  • colour filters
  • daltonization
  • visual accessibility
  • assistive tools
  • user research

• How Do People with Limited Movement Personalize Upper-Body Gestures? Considerations for the Design of Personalized and Accessible Gesture Interfaces

  Momona Yamagami, Alexandra A Portnova-Fahreeva, Junhan Kong, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Jennifer Mankoff (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This study investigates how people with upper-body motor impairments design personalized gestures for common device functions like move, select, zoom-in, open, and delete. The researchers recruited 25 participants with conditions including spinal cor…

  • motor impairments
  • gesture input
  • personalization
  • wearable sensors
  • electromyography
  • spinal cord injury
  • muscular dystrophy
  • assistive technology
  • user-defined gestures

• Bridging the Gap: Towards Advancing Privacy and Accessibility

  Rahaf Alharbi, Robin N. Brewer, Gesu India, Lotus Zhang, Leah Findlater, Yixin Zou, Abigale Stangl (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This workshop proposal addresses a critical but understudied gap between the accessibility and privacy research communities. The authors argue that while all technology has privacy implications, accessibility tools carry particularly overlooked priva…

  • privacy
  • accessibility
  • intersectionality
  • AI ethics
  • blind and low vision
  • workshop
  • inclusive design
  • surveillance

• Notably Inaccessible — Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility

  Venkatesh Potluri, Sudheesh Singanamalla, Nussara Tieanklin, Jennifer Mankoff (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first large-scale analysis of the accessibility of computational notebooks — interactive documents combining code, text, and data visualizations that have become the standard tool for data science work. The researchers analyze…

  • computational notebooks
  • data science
  • screen readers
  • blind and visually impaired
  • data visualization
  • alternative text
  • automated testing
  • web accessibility

• A Demonstration of RASSAR: Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality

  Xia Su, Kaiming Cheng, Han Zhang, Jaewook Lee, Wyatt Olson, Jon E. Froehlich (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper introduces RASSAR (Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality), a mobile AR application that semi-automatically identifies, localizes, and visualizes indoor accessibility and safety issues using iPhone LiDAR sensors a…

  • augmented reality
  • computer vision
  • indoor accessibility
  • object detection
  • LiDAR
  • home safety
  • accessibility auditing
  • mobile application

• Banal Autistic Social Media: A Found Footage Autoethnography

  Kay Kender, Katta Spiel (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This position paper argues for designing social media platforms that support thriving neurodiverse online communities, moving beyond deficit-focused approaches that treat autistic users as needing to be "fixed" to match neurotypical social norms. The…

  • autism
  • neurodiversity
  • social media
  • design justice
  • autoethnography
  • inclusive design
  • design power
  • sensory overload
  • online communities

• UnlockedMaps: A Web-Based Map for Visualizing the Real-Time Accessibility of Urban Rail Transit Stations

  Ather Sharif, Aneesha Ramesh, Qianqian Yu, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, Xuhai Xu (2023) — Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents UnlockedMaps, an open-data web-based map that visualizes the real-time elevator status of urban rail transit stations in six North American cities: Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Toronto. The work addresse…

  • transit accessibility
  • urban accessibility
  • open data
  • web-based maps
  • elevator outages
  • wheelchair accessibility
  • mobility disability
  • civic hacking
  • participatory design

• A platform to check website compliance with web accessibility standards

  Reinaldo Ferraz, Ana Duarte, João Bárbara, Adriano C.M. Pereira, Wagner Meira (2023) — Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This short paper presents the TIC Web Acessibilidade platform, a comprehensive system for evaluating and monitoring the accessibility of Brazilian government websites at scale. Developed by NIC.br (the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee's executiv…

  • automated testing
  • web accessibility
  • government accessibility
  • accessibility monitoring
  • web crawler
  • compliance
  • Global South accessibility