Literature Reviews

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

• Crowdsourcing Subjective Fashion Advice Using VizWiz: Challenges and Opportunities

  Michele A. Burton, Erin Brady, Robin Brewer, Callie Neylan, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amy Hurst (2012) — ASSETS '12: Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the accessibility barriers that fashion and clothing present to people with vision impairments, and explores whether crowdsourcing through VizWiz can provide useful subjective fashion advice. The research is grounded in the re…

  • blind users
  • crowdsourcing
  • fashion accessibility
  • VizWiz
  • subjective questions
  • social participation
  • assistive technology
  • trust

• Using Real-time Feedback to Improve Visual Question Answering

  Yu Zhong, Phyo Thiha, Grant He, Walter Lasecki, Jeffrey Bigham (2012) — CHI EA '12: CHI '12 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This work-in-progress paper introduces Legion:View, a system that extends the VizWiz model of crowd-powered visual question answering by adding a real-time feedback loop between blind users and crowd workers. The original VizWiz allowed blind users t…

  • visual question answering
  • crowdsourcing
  • blind users
  • real-time systems
  • assistive technology
  • human computation
  • VizWiz
  • mobile accessibility

• WebAnywhere: A Screen Reader On-the-Go

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Craig M. Prince (2007) — Assets '07: Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This demonstration paper introduces WebAnywhere, a web-based, self-voicing screen reader that enables blind users to access the web from any computer with a standard browser and sound output, without needing to install specialized software. The paper…

  • screen readers
  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • assistive technology
  • text-to-speech
  • web-based tools

• Visual Challenges in the Everyday Lives of Blind People

  Erin Brady, Meredith Ringel Morris, Yu Zhong, Samuel White, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper presents the findings of a year-long large-scale study of VizWiz Social, an iPhone application that allows blind users to take a photograph, record a spoken question about it, and receive answers from crowd workers or social contacts withi…

  • blind users
  • crowdsourcing
  • mobile accessibility
  • VizWiz
  • visual question answering
  • assistive technology
  • human-powered access technology
  • information needs

• Supporting Blind Photography

  Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Samuel White, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2011) — ASSETS '11: The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper explores how blind and low-vision people use cameras and presents two applications designed to make photography more accessible. The research begins with a large-scale online survey of 118 blind and low-vision people that establishes the e…

  • blind users
  • low vision
  • photography
  • computer vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • audio feedback
  • haptic feedback
  • face detection
  • assistive technology

• Adaptive Time Windows for Real-Time Crowd Captioning

  Matthew J. Murphy, Christopher D. Miller, Walter S. Lasecki, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — CHI EA '13: CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper addresses a key barrier to real-time captioning access for deaf and hard of hearing people: the high cost of professional stenographers, who can charge up to $200 per hour. Building on the Legion:Scribe system, which demonstrated that grou…

  • real-time captioning
  • crowdsourcing
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • assistive technology
  • human computation
  • CART alternatives

• EasySnap: Real-time Audio Feedback for Blind Photography

  Samuel White, Hanjie Ji, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2010) — Adjunct Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2010)

  This demonstration paper presents EasySnap, an iPhone application that enables blind and low-vision users to take high-quality photographs by providing real-time audio feedback as they point their camera phones. The system addresses a key barrier: bl…

  • blind and low vision
  • computer vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • photography
  • auditory interface
  • non-visual interfaces

• Answering Visual Questions with Conversational Crowd Assistants

  Walter S. Lasecki, Phyo Thiha, Yu Zhong, Erin Brady, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013)

  This paper introduces Chorus:View, a system that enables blind users to get visual questions answered through continuous conversational interaction with multiple crowd workers viewing a live video stream from the user's mobile device. The system addr…

  • blind and low vision
  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • assistive technology
  • visual assistance
  • VizWiz
  • conversational interface
  • mobile accessibility

• Real-Time Crowd Labeling for Deployable Activity Recognition

  Walter S. Lasecki, Young Chol Song, Henry Kautz, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW 2013)

  Legion:AR is a system that provides deployable activity recognition by combining real-time crowd labeling with automatic recognition using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs). The system addresses a critical limitation of current activity recognition: automa…

  • activity recognition
  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • machine learning
  • aging in place
  • cognitive accessibility
  • smart environments
  • privacy
  • assistive technology

• Real-Time Captioning by Non-Experts with Legion Scribe

  Walter S. Lasecki, Christopher D. Miller, Raja Kushalnagar, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013)

  This short paper introduces Legion Scribe (Scribe), a system that enables 3-5 non-expert typists to collectively caption speech in real time, achieving accuracy approaching that of a professional stenographer at 20-30% of the cost. The system address…

  • real-time captioning
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • assistive technology
  • captioning