Literature Reviews

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

• A system for teaching speech to profoundly deaf children using synthesized acoustic and articulatory patterns

  E. Keate, H. Javkin, N. Antonanzas-Barroso, R. Zou (1994) — Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '94)

  This paper describes a PC-based computer-assisted speech training system for profoundly deaf children that integrates a text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizer to generate both acoustic and articulatory models for any typed utterance. The system addresses a…

  • deaf education
  • speech training
  • text-to-speech
  • palatography
  • visual feedback
  • acoustic analysis
  • articulation
  • speech synthesis
  • deaf children
  • computer-aided instruction
  • formant analysis

• (Natural Language) Interaction with Graphical Representations of Statistical Data

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Louis Boucher (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada presents iGraph-Lite, a system that makes statistical graphs published in "The Daily" (Statistics Canada's main dissemination publication) accessible to blind and visually impaired users throu…

  • data visualization
  • blind users
  • visual impairment
  • natural language processing
  • web accessibility
  • accessible graphics
  • text-to-speech
  • data accessibility
  • government

• Towards One World Web with HearSay3

  Yevgen Borodin, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amanda Stent, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2008) — Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper presents HearSay 3, a self-voicing non-visual web browser developed at Stony Brook University and the University of Washington, designed to address accessibility challenges introduced by Web 2.0. Building on two previous versions — t…

  • screen readers
  • non-visual web browser
  • blind users
  • collaborative accessibility
  • multilingual accessibility
  • dynamic content
  • Web 2.0
  • crowdsourcing
  • text-to-speech

• Augmenting social media accessibility

  Roberto Borrino, Marco Furini, Marco Roccetti (2009) — Proceedings of the 2009 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibililty (W4A)

  This paper presents SOMFA (SOcial Media For All), an architecture that transforms web-based social media content into multimodal audio/video presentations suitable for television sets. The system addresses the growing social divide created by social …

  • social media
  • digital divide
  • aging
  • content adaptation
  • text-to-speech
  • multimodal interaction
  • television accessibility
  • web syndication

• Describing online videos with text-to-speech narration

  Masatomo Kobayashi, Tohru Nagano, Kentarou Fukuda, Hironobu Takagi (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo presents a technology platform that uses text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis to add audio descriptions (AD) to online videos at minimal cost. The system addresses the two main barriers that prevent most online video crea…

  • audio description
  • text-to-speech
  • video accessibility
  • speech synthesis
  • external metadata
  • visual impairment
  • assistive technology

• Towards a Universal Accessibility for Textual Information

  Vasile Topac (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This student award paper from Politehnica University Timisoara proposes a universal framework for understanding and addressing textual information accessibility across all media formats and contexts — not just web accessibility, but also document acc…

  • content adaptation
  • cloud computing
  • text-to-speech
  • speech recognition
  • multilingual accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • plain language
  • accessibility frameworks

• Farfalla Project: Browser-Based Accessibility Solutions

  Andrea Mangiatordi, Harpreet Singh Sareen (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Farfalla, a free and open-source project from the University of Milano Bicocca that provides cloud-based assistive technology through the browser, eliminating the need for locally installed software. The core insight is that tradi…

  • assistive technology
  • cloud computing
  • web accessibility
  • accessibility tools
  • browser extension
  • low vision
  • text-to-speech
  • crowdsourcing
  • open source

• Web Educational Services for All: The APEINTA Project

  Ana Iglesias, Lourdes Moreno, Belén Ruiz, José Luis Pajares, Javier Jiménez, Juan Francisco López, Pablo Revuelta, Julián Hernández (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents APEINTA, a Spanish educational project from Carlos III University of Madrid and the Spanish Centre of Captioning and Audio Description (CESyA), aimed at providing inclusive education through three cloud-based web services. Started…

  • education accessibility
  • captioning
  • text-to-speech
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • speech disability
  • cloud computing
  • inclusive education
  • automatic speech recognition

• Universal and Ubiquitous Web Access with Capti

  Yevgen Borodin, Andrii Sovyak, Alexander Dimitriyadi, Yury Puzis, Valentyn Melnyk, Faisal Ahmed, Glenn Dausch, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents Capti, a cross-platform web browsing application designed to make web access more usable for both blind and sighted users. Capti addresses two interconnected problems: the inefficiency of traditional screen readers for findin…

  • screen readers
  • assistive technology
  • blind and low vision
  • text-to-speech
  • universal design
  • mobile accessibility
  • web accessibility

• Listen to Everything You Want to Read with Capti Narrator

  Yevgen Borodin, Yuri Puzis, Andrii Soviak, James Bouker, Bo Feng, Richard Sicoli, Andrii Melnyk, Valentyn Melnyk, Vikas Ashok, Glenn Dausch, I.V. Ramakrishnan (2014) — Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Capti Narrator, a cross-platform text-to-speech application developed by Charmtech Labs that enables hands-free consumption of digital content. Unlike traditional screen readers that are tightly coupled to operating system interfa…

  • text-to-speech
  • print disability
  • screen reader
  • mobile accessibility
  • universal access
  • reading accessibility
  • assistive technology