Literature Reviews

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

• PowerUp: An Accessible Virtual World

  Shari Trewin, Vicki L. Hanson, Mark R. Laff, Anna Cavender (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper describes the design and validation of accessibility features for PowerUp, an IBM-developed multiplayer 3D virtual world educational game aimed at middle school students. The researchers were tasked with making the game usable by players w…

  • game accessibility
  • virtual reality
  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • cognitive accessibility
  • motor disability
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • inclusive design
  • navigation
  • self-voicing interface
  • sonification

• Making Microsoft Excel Accessible: Multimodal Presentation of Charts

  Iyad Abu Doush, Enrico Pontelli, Dominic Simon, Tran Cao Son, Ou Ma (2009) — Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper presents a system for making Microsoft Excel charts accessible to people with visual impairments through a combination of haptic force feedback and audio cues. The authors identify that while screen readers and specialised tools can handle…

  • data visualization
  • haptic technology
  • sonification
  • visual impairment
  • charts
  • multimodal interaction
  • Microsoft Excel
  • accessible graphs

• Designing Auditory Cues to Enhance Spoken Mathematics for Visually Impaired Users

  Emma Murphy, Enda Bates, Dónal Fitzpatrick (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This paper presents a novel auditory math system designed to make spoken mathematical equations more accessible to visually impaired users. The core challenge addressed is that visual mathematical notation conveys structure — such as fractions, super…

  • mathematical accessibility
  • auditory display
  • non-speech sound
  • spearcons
  • visual impairment
  • screen readers
  • participatory design
  • sonification

• Does a Sonar System Make a Blind Maze Navigation Computer Game More "Fun"?

  Matt Wilkerson, Amanda Koenig, James Daniel (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This student research paper from the Blind Programming Project at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville presents "The Dark Labyrinth," a zombie-killing maze navigation game designed entirely for blind players. The broader project goal is to creat…

  • game accessibility
  • audio game
  • blind users
  • sonification
  • accessible programming
  • auditory feedback

• Color-Audio Encoding Interface for Visual Substitution: See ColOr Matlab-based Demo

  Juan Diego Gomez, Guido Bologna, Thierry Pun (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This demonstration paper presents the See ColOr (Seeing Color with an Orchestra) system, a framework that translates colour information from images into spatialized musical instrument sounds to provide people who are blind with a form of colour perce…

  • sonification
  • visual substitution
  • blindness
  • color perception
  • sensory substitution
  • spatial audio
  • HRTF
  • assistive technology

• Toward 3D Scene Understanding via Audio-description: Kinect-iPad Fusion for the Visually Impaired

  Juan Diego Gomez, Sinan Mohammed, Guido Bologna, Thierry Pun (2011) — Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This demonstration paper presents a computer-vision-based framework that combines a Microsoft Kinect 3D depth sensor with an iPad touchscreen to enable visually impaired users to understand the spatial layout of indoor scenes through audio. The syste…

  • sonification
  • visual substitution
  • Kinect
  • computer vision
  • blindness
  • object recognition
  • spatial audio
  • tactile exploration
  • electronic travel aid
  • sensory substitution

• Annotation-based Video Enrichment for Blind People: A Pilot Study on the Use of Earcons and Speech Synthesis

  Benoît Encelle, Magali Ollagnier-Beldame, Stéphanie Pouchot, Yannick Prié (2011) — Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This paper presents exploratory work from the ACAV (Collaborative Annotation for Video Accessibility) project, investigating how combining earcons (nonverbal audio messages) with speech synthesis can improve video accessibility for blind people. Trad…

  • video accessibility
  • blindness
  • audio description
  • earcons
  • speech technology
  • multimedia accessibility
  • sonification

• FEPS: A Sensory Substitution System for the Blind to Perceive Facial Expressions

  Md. Iftekhar Tanveer, A.S.M. Iftekhar Anam, A.K.M Mahbubur Rahman, Sreya Ghosh, Mohammed Yeasin (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This demonstration paper presents FEPS (Facial Expression Perception through Sound), a visual-to-auditory sensory substitution system that enables blind individuals to perceive their conversation partner's facial expressions through sound. The inabil…

  • visual impairment
  • blind users
  • sensory substitution
  • sonification
  • facial expression recognition
  • non-verbal communication
  • social interaction
  • face tracking
  • computer vision
  • assistive technology

• Do You See What I See? Designing a Sensory Substitution Device to Access Non-Verbal Modes of Communication

  M. Iftekhar Tanveer, A. S. M. Iftekhar Anam, Mohammed Yeasin, Majid Khan (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This paper presents iFEPS (improved Facial Expression Perception through Sound), a visual-to-auditory sensory substitution device that enables blind users to perceive their conversation partner's facial expressions through audio feedback. Research su…

  • sensory substitution
  • blind users
  • facial expression
  • non-verbal communication
  • computer vision
  • sonification
  • participatory design
  • smartphone
  • social interaction
  • face tracking
  • FACS

• Follow That Sound: Using Sonification and Corrective Verbal Feedback to Teach Touchscreen Gestures

  Uran Oh, Shaun K. Kane, Leah Findlater (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This paper proposes and evaluates two techniques for teaching touchscreen gestures to users with visual impairments: gesture sonification (mapping finger position to audio using pitch for the y-axis and stereo panning for the x-axis) and corrective v…

  • touchscreen accessibility
  • sonification
  • gesture learning
  • blind users
  • visual impairment
  • mobile accessibility
  • audio feedback
  • text-to-speech
  • VoiceOver
  • gesture recognition