Literature Reviews

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

• Exploring the Use of Speech Input by Blind People on Mobile Devices

  Shiri Azenkot, Nicole B. Lee (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates how blind people use speech input on mobile devices through two studies: a survey of 169 participants (64 blind/low-vision, 105 sighted) and a laboratory study with 8 blind participants composing paragraphs on an iPod Touch us…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • speech input
  • speech recognition
  • mobile accessibility
  • text entry
  • VoiceOver
  • dictation
  • eyes-free interaction

• UbiBraille: Designing and Evaluating a Vibrotactile Braille-Reading Device

  Hugo Nicolau, João Guerreiro, Tiago Guerreiro, Luís Carriço (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This paper presents UbiBraille, a wearable vibrotactile device that enables blind users to read textual information privately and inconspicuously by leveraging their existing knowledge of Braille. The device consists of six small vibration motors att…

  • braille
  • vibrotactile
  • wearable technology
  • blind users
  • haptic feedback
  • assistive technology
  • privacy
  • deafblindness
  • communication
  • Arduino
  • text entry

• Optimization of Switch Keyboards

  Xiao (Cosmo) Zhang, Kan Fang, Gregory Francis (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper presents a method for optimizing the character layout of switch keyboards used by people with severe motor control difficulties, including those with locked-in syndrome resulting from spinal cord or brain injury. Switch keyboards wor…

  • switch access
  • text entry
  • motor disability
  • locked-in syndrome
  • keyboard optimization
  • scanning
  • AAC
  • assistive technology
  • spinal cord injury

• Improved Inference and Autotyping in EEG-based BCI Typing Systems

  Andrew Fowler, Brian Roark, Umut Orhan, Deniz Erdogmus, Melanie Fried-Oken (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This paper presents improvements to the RSVP Keyboard, a brain-computer interface (BCI) typing system designed for people with severe motor disabilities, particularly those with locked-in syndrome (LIS) resulting from ALS or brain stem stroke who can…

  • brain-computer interface
  • BCI
  • EEG
  • text entry
  • locked-in syndrome
  • ALS
  • AAC
  • language models
  • P300
  • assistive technology
  • motor disability

• Move&Flick: Design and Evaluation of a Single-Finger and Eyes-Free Kana-Character Entry Method on Touch Screens

  Ryosuke Aoki, Ryo Hashimoto, Akihiro Miyata, Shunichi Seko, Masahiro Watanabe, Masayuki Ihara (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '14)

  This demonstration paper presents Move&Flick, a Japanese Kana-character text entry method designed for visually impaired users on touchscreen devices. Standard touchscreen text entry for visually impaired people is burdensome: users must explore the …

  • text entry
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • mobile accessibility
  • gesture interaction
  • Japanese accessibility
  • eyes-free interaction
  • input methods

• Speech Dasher: A Demonstration of Text Input using Speech and Approximate Pointing

  Keith Vertanen, David J.C. MacKay (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper demonstrates Speech Dasher, a multimodal text entry system that combines speech recognition with the Dasher zooming interface to enable fast, corrected text input using only voice and gaze direction. The core problem addressed is that whil…

  • speech recognition
  • eye tracking
  • gaze input
  • text entry
  • error correction
  • assistive technology
  • language model
  • multimodal interaction

• DigitCHAT: Enabling AAC Input at Conversational Speed

  Karl Wiegand, Rupal Patel (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper presents DigitCHAT, a prototype augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system designed for literate users with mild upper limb motor impairments who need fast, expressive face-to-face communication on mobile phones. The authors i…

  • augmentative and alternative communication
  • AAC
  • text entry
  • mobile accessibility
  • motor impairments
  • continuous motion input
  • speech impairments
  • conversational interaction

• Text Entry Using Single-Channel Analog Puff Input

  Adam J. Sporka (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This short demonstration paper presents a prototype text entry system that repurposes a single-channel analog puff input device — specifically the AKAI EWI USB, a MIDI controller designed for woodwind instrument emulation — as an assistive technology…

  • sip-and-puff
  • text entry
  • assistive technology
  • motor disabilities
  • alternative input
  • scanning
  • MIDI
  • analog input

• Designing a Text Entry Multimodal Keypad for Blind Users of Touchscreen Mobile Phones

  Maria Claudia Buzzi, Marina Buzzi, Barbara Leporini, Amaury Trujillo (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents MTITK (Multimodal Text Input Touchscreen Keypad), a software-only text entry system for blind users of touchscreen phones that combines the familiar 12-key telephone keypad layout with multimodal audio-tactile feedback. The work i…

  • mobile accessibility
  • text entry
  • blindness
  • multimodal interaction
  • haptic feedback
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • Android

• Phoneme-based Predictive Text Entry Interface

  Ha Trinh, Annalu Waller, Keith Vertanen, Per Ola Kristensson, Vicki L. Hanson (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents iSCAN-2, an iPad application that enables nonspeaking individuals to enter text by selecting phonemes (speech sounds) rather than spelling words with letters. People with severe speech impairments often face challenges in literacy…

  • AAC
  • text entry
  • phoneme
  • speech impairment
  • word prediction
  • literacy
  • assistive technology
  • pie menu