Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
749 results found tagged assistive technology.
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Grassroots Maker Perspectives on Participation in Do-It-Yourself Assistive Technology Development
Sarwar, Wilson, and Mahbub interviewed 20 grassroots DIY assistive-technology (DIY-AT) makers in the U.S. between July 2021 and December 2023 to build a maker-centered account of the DIY-AT ecosystem. Participants were recruited from social media (Re…
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Beyond Descriptions: A Generative Scene2Audio Framework for Blind and Low-Vision Users to Experience Vista Landscapes
Scene description apps (Seeing AI, Be My AI, Envision) do a reasonable job of telling blind and low-vision (BLV) users what is in front of them, but they are built for utility - 'there is a chair'. They fail at the aesthetic, leisure, emotional exper…
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Lost in Instructions: Study of Blind Users' Experiences with DIY Manuals and AI-Rewritten Instructions for Assembly, Operation, and Troubleshooting of Tangible Products
Blind users increasingly reach for AI tools like Be My AI (Be My Eyes' GPT-4-powered assistant) and ChatGPT to interpret the printed and PDF product manuals that accompany consumer goods - flat-pack furniture, alarm clocks, timers, ring lights, smart…
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From Selfie Stick to Virtual Cane: Enabling Blind Exploration through Mobile Virtual Reality
Consumer VR is a visual-first medium, which in practice shuts out blind and low-vision (BLV) users. Tang and colleagues argue that existing accessible VR systems do help BLV users explore virtual environments (VEs), but they depend on head-mounted di…
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Advancing Inclusive Digital Well-Being Tools: How Neurodivergent Students Use Distraction Blockers
This CHI 2026 paper asks whether digital distraction blockers — Apple Screen Time, Forest, Freedom, StayFocusd, and similar tools — actually serve the neurodivergent post-secondary students who are arguably their most marginal audience, or whether bl…
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From Autonomy to Sovereignty — A New Telos for Socially Assistive Technology
This CHI 2026 theory paper argues that assistive-technology (AT) research has long treated 'independence' as its primary goal — a framing codified in the 1988 U.S. Technology-Related Assistance Act — even though disabled people's lived experience is …
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How Multimodal Large Language Models Support Access to Visual Information: A Diary Study With Blind and Low Vision People
This CHI 2026 paper reports a two-week diary study with 20 Blind and Low Vision (BLV) participants (ages 19–75, 11 female/9 male, 13 blind/7 low vision) investigating how multimodal large language models (MLLMs) support real-world access to visual in…
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Understanding Nature Engagement Experiences of Blind People
This mixed-methods study investigates how blind people in mainland China experience and relate to natural environments, a domain the authors argue has been almost entirely overlooked by Human-Nature Interaction (HNI) research and by accessibility too…
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TouchScribe: Augmenting Non-Visual Hand-Object Interactions with Automated Live Visual Descriptions
TouchScribe is a wearable, camera-based assistive system that delivers live, hierarchical visual descriptions of physical objects in response to a blind or low vision (BLV) user's hand-object interactions. The authors argue that existing AI assistant…
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Fluid Independence: Powered Wheelchair Users' Perspectives on Autonomy, Care, and Assistive Technology
This CHI 2026 paper reports a large qualitative study of 55 powered-wheelchair users (PWUs) across ten U.S. states, using 45-minute semi-structured interviews and Braun-and-Clarke thematic analysis to examine how independence is experienced, negotiat…