Literature Reviews

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

• Firefixia: An Accessibility Web Browser Customization Toolbar for People with Dyslexia

  Vagner Figueredo de Santana, Rosimeire de Oliveira, Leonelo Dell Anhol Almeida, Marcia Ito (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Firefixia, a Mozilla Firefox browser extension toolbar designed to help people with dyslexia customise the presentation of web content according to their individual preferences. The authors note that while web accessibility effort…

  • dyslexia
  • web accessibility
  • browser extension
  • customization
  • assistive technology
  • reading accessibility
  • user testing
  • cognitive accessibility

• Layout Guidelines for Web Text and a Web Service to Improve Accessibility for Dyslexics

  Luz Rello, Gaurang Kanvinde, Ricardo Baeza-Yates (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents evidence-based layout guidelines for making web text more readable for people with dyslexia, derived from a user study with 22 dyslexic participants and a matched control group. The study is notable for being the first to combine …

  • dyslexia
  • readability
  • typography
  • eye tracking
  • text presentation
  • web accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • color contrast
  • font size
  • line spacing

• Size Matters (Spacing Not): 18 Points for a Dyslexic-Friendly Wikipedia

  Luz Rello, Martin Pielot, Mari-Carmen Marcos, Roberto Carlini (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper investigates the effect of font size and line spacing on readability and comprehension for people with dyslexia, tested in the real-world context of Wikipedia articles rather than isolated text samples. The authors conducted an eye-trackin…

  • dyslexia
  • typography
  • readability
  • eye tracking
  • font size
  • line spacing
  • text presentation
  • cognitive accessibility
  • web accessibility

• DysWebxia 2.0! More Accessible Text for People with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Clara Bayarri, Azuki Gòrriz, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Saurabh Gupta, Gaurang Kanvinde, Horacio Saggion, Stefan Bott, Roberto Carlini, Vasile Topac (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper introduces DysWebxia 2.0, a model for making text more accessible to people with dyslexia by modifying both the presentation and content of text. The project is notable for being the first model to combine text presentation changes (f…

  • dyslexia
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • assistive technology
  • text presentation
  • cognitive accessibility
  • browser extension
  • natural language processing

• Simplify or Help? Text Simplification Strategies for People with Dyslexia

  Luz Rello, Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Stefan Bott, Horacio Saggion (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper evaluates two automatic lexical simplification strategies designed to make text more accessible for people with dyslexia. The research addresses a key gap: while previous tools for dyslexic readers focused on text presentation (fonts, spac…

  • dyslexia
  • text simplification
  • readability
  • cognitive accessibility
  • eye tracking
  • lexical simplification
  • natural language processing
  • user study

• Web accessibility and people with dyslexia: a survey on techniques and guidelines

  Vagner Figueredo de Santana, Rosimeire de Oliveira, Leonelo Dell Anhol Almeida, Maria Cecília Calani Baranauskas (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents a comprehensive survey of the state of the art on dyslexia and web accessibility, synthesising findings from academic research, dyslexia organisations (particularly the British Dyslexia Association), and practitioner guidance into…

  • dyslexia
  • cognitive accessibility
  • web accessibility guidelines
  • readability
  • inclusive design
  • universal design
  • typography

• Estimating dyslexia in the web

  Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Luz Rello (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the first attempt to estimate the prevalence of dyslexic writing errors in English-language web content. The authors developed a classification system distinguishing five types of lexical errors: dyslexic errors (multi-character r…

  • dyslexia
  • cognitive accessibility
  • web content quality
  • natural language processing
  • spelling errors
  • readability

• Dyslexia Exercises on my Tablet are more Fun

  Luz Rello, Clara Bayarri, Azuki Gòrriz (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Dyseggxia, a free mobile game for iOS and Android designed to help children with dyslexia practice language exercises in an engaging, adaptive format. Dyslexia affects approximately 10% of children worldwide and is characterized b…

  • dyslexia
  • serious game
  • mobile accessibility
  • adaptive learning
  • natural language processing
  • children
  • cognitive accessibility
  • assistive technology

• 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

• Detecting Readers with Dyslexia Using Machine Learning with Eye Tracking Measures

  Luz Rello, Miguel Ballesteros (2015) — Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the first machine learning model to automatically detect readers with dyslexia using eye tracking data. The authors trained a Support Vector Machine (SVM) binary classifier on a dataset of 1,135 readings from 97 Spanish-speaking p…

  • dyslexia
  • eye tracking
  • machine learning
  • detection
  • support vector machine
  • reading accessibility
  • learning disabilities