Literature Reviews

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

• Reclaiming VR Design Authority: Deaf Signers Shaping Immersive Classrooms

  Shuxu Huffman, Laura South, Matthew James Buckman, Raja Kushalnagar, Francisco Raul Ortega, Abraham Glasser (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports a Deaf-led, ASL-first study of a VR classroom prototype designed to reduce the persistent "visual attention split" that Deaf students experience in remote and online classrooms, where gaze must constantly shuttle between a signing …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • deaf tech
  • virtual reality
  • visual attention split
  • american sign language
  • participatory design
  • education
  • deaf-centered design

• How to design cognitively accessible digital design patterns for booking tickets: A participative study with Easy-to-Read users.

  Sabina Sieghart, Björn Rohles, Kim Corti, Trang Nguyen, Ann Bessemans (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Sieghart and colleagues tackle a persistent gap in cognitive accessibility research: digital design patterns are almost never validated with Easy-to-Read (ETR) users — adults with intellectual disabilities who can read at a basic level. The paper rep…

  • cognitive accessibility
  • Easy-to-Read
  • intellectual disability
  • participatory design
  • digital design patterns
  • usability
  • inclusion
  • user study
  • interaction design
  • e-commerce accessibility

• Designing Socially Assistive Robots for Perinatal Depression Screening: Insights and Ethical Considerations from Two Exploratory Studies

  Mengyu Zhong, Lux Miranda, Fotios C. Papadopoulos, Katie Winkle, Alkistis Skalkidou, Ginevra Castellano (2026) — ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

  This paper reports two exploratory studies investigating the use of Socially Assistive Robots (SARs) for Perinatal Depression (PND) screening. PND affects up to 10% of individuals during pregnancy or postpartum, yet 50% of antenatal depression cases …

  • socially assistive robots
  • mental health
  • perinatal depression
  • participatory design
  • human-robot interaction
  • ethics
  • healthcare technology
  • vulnerable populations
  • trustworthy AI

• Adaptive and Storytelling Practices of Panamanian Autism Families: Towards Culturally-Situated Digital Storytelling

  Elizabeth del Carmen Castillo, Debbie Alvarado Latino, Cecilia Aracelly Fonseca Sánchez, Annuska Zolyomi (2026) — Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (GROUP)

  This PACM HCI (GROUP) paper presents a formative, culturally-situated design study with eight Panamanian mothers of autistic individuals (ages 3–27) to understand the resource barriers autism families face in Panamá and the role storytelling plays in…

  • autism
  • neurodiversity
  • culture
  • Global South
  • storytelling
  • social stories
  • boundary objects
  • participatory design
  • AAC
  • qualitative research
  • HCI

• Robot Characters: Co-Designing Dynamic Personalities for Cognitively Assistive Robots

  Dagoberto Cruz-Sandoval, Alyssa Kubota, Connie Guan, Soyon Kim, Laurel D. Riek (2026) — ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

  The paper introduces the concept of a "robot character" — a holistic, context-sensitive framing of robot personality that extends beyond trait-based models such as Big Five by incorporating shared interests, cultural background, lived experiences, an…

  • cognitively assistive robots
  • robot personality
  • co-design
  • inclusive design
  • dementia
  • mild cognitive impairment
  • cross-cultural research
  • human-robot interaction
  • participatory design
  • disability justice

• Eye-Tracking-Driven Shared Control for Robotic Arms: Wizard of Oz Studies to Assess Design Choices

  Anke Fischer-Janzen, Thomas M. Wendt, Daniel Görlich, Kristof Van Laerhoven (2026) — ACM Transactions on Human-Robot Interaction

  The paper presents two Wizard of Oz studies evaluating an eye-tracking-driven shared-control system for an assistive robotic arm — the 7-DoF Kinova Gen3 — designed for People with Severe Motor Disabilities (PSMD). PSMD here includes people with locke…

  • assistive robotics
  • eye tracking
  • gaze input
  • shared control
  • motor disability
  • activities of daily living
  • human-robot interaction
  • wizard of oz
  • participatory design

• Rhetoric vs Responsibility: How Tech Companies Shape AI for Accessibility

  Aparajita S Marathe, Quan Zhou, Achi Mishra, Anne Marie Piper (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Marathe, Zhou, Mishra, and Piper conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 126 public-facing blog posts and news articles published between 2016 and 2025 by 11 leading U.S.-based AI companies — Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Eleven Labs, Google, Meta, Mi…

  • artificial intelligence
  • AI accessibility
  • critical discourse analysis
  • disability justice
  • critical disability studies
  • technoableism
  • corporate rhetoric
  • AI ethics
  • participatory design
  • disability representation
  • ethics washing

• Sign Language Interfaces: Discussing the Field's Biggest Challenges

  Danielle Bragg, Meredith Ringel Morris, Christian Vogler, Raja Kushalnagar, Matt Huenerfauth, Hernisa Kacorri (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20)

  This CHI 2020 Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting paper (5 pages) is an organising document rather than a conventional research paper. It convenes HCI and accessibility researchers working on sign-language interfaces around the five calls-to-action …

  • sign language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • deaf culture
  • american sign language
  • research methodology
  • datasets
  • accessibility research
  • participatory design

• Remotely Co-Designing Features for Communication Applications using Automatic Captioning with Deaf and Hearing Pairs

  Matthew Seita, Sooyeon Lee, Sarah Andrew, Kristen Shinohara, Matt Huenerfauth (2022) — Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper addresses two intertwined problems. First, methodologically, how can co-design research involving both Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) and hearing participants be conducted remotely during and beyond COVID-19, when in-person sessions a…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • participatory design
  • co-design
  • videoconferencing
  • captioning
  • captions
  • mixed-ability
  • accessibility research
  • remote research

• PathFinder: Designing a Map-less Navigation System for Blind People in Unfamiliar Buildings

  Masaki Kuribayashi, Tatsuya Ishihara, Daisuke Sato, Jayakorn Vongkulbhisal, Karnik Ram, Seita Kayukawa, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2023) — Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  Map-based indoor navigation systems for blind travellers (CaBot, NavCog, BLE-beacon apps) work well when a prebuilt map exists, but building and maintaining those maps is labour-intensive and has only been done for a tiny fraction of the world's buil…

  • map-less navigation
  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • intersection detection
  • sign recognition
  • visual impairment
  • orientation and mobility
  • participatory design
  • shared control
  • assistive robotics
  • LiDAR
  • OCR