Literature Reviews

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

• A Study on Customizing Interaction in Adaptable Games

  Caio Pinheiro de Carvalho, Suzane Santos dos Santos, Gabriel de Magalhães Escudeiro, Kelly Vale Pinheiro, Nelson Cruz Sampaio Neto, Marcelle Pereira Mota (2019) — Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC)

  This paper from the Federal University of Pará (Brazil) investigates customization features for adaptable games designed as assistive technology tools for children with disabilities, where healthcare professionals configure the games to match each ch…

  • game accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • cognitive accessibility
  • intellectual disability
  • personalization
  • cerebral palsy
  • autism
  • rehabilitation

• Do Web Users with Autism Experience Barriers When Searching for Information Within Web Pages?

  Sukru Eraslan, Victoria Yaneva, Yeliz Yesilada, Simon Harper (2017) — Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper provides empirical evidence that adults with high-functioning autism experience real barriers when searching for information on web pages, using eye tracking to reveal the underlying differences in visual attention patterns. The study empl…

  • autism
  • eye tracking
  • web accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • scanpath analysis
  • visual attention
  • neurodivergence
  • user study
  • information search
  • web searching
  • WCAG
  • open data
  • weak central coherence
  • stimulus overselectivity

• Detecting Autism Based on Eye-Tracking Data from Web Searching Tasks

  Victoria Yaneva, Le An Ha, Sukru Eraslan, Yeliz Yesilada, Ruslan Mitkov (2018) — Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates whether eye-tracking data collected during everyday web tasks can be used to distinguish between people with and without autism, potentially enabling a low-cost, accessible screening approach. The study collected gaze data fro…

  • autism
  • eye tracking
  • machine learning
  • web accessibility
  • cognitive accessibility
  • screening
  • diagnostic classification
  • visual attention
  • user study
  • gaze data
  • web searching
  • open data
  • neurodivergence

• Adaptable User Interfaces for People with Autism: A Transportation Example

  Claudia De Los Rios Perez (2018) — Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents early-stage research into developing an accessibility framework for adaptable user interfaces tailored to people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), using public transportation as the application domain. The author …

  • autism
  • adaptive user interface
  • transportation accessibility
  • ontology
  • semantic web
  • user interface design
  • cognitive accessibility
  • personalization
  • eye tracking
  • map accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • responsive design

• Automatic Natural Language Generation Applied to Alternative and Augmentative Communication for Online Video Content Services using SimpleNLG for Spanish

  Silvia García-Méndez, Milagros Fernández-Gavilanes, Enrique Costa-Montenegro, Jonathan Juncal-Martínez, Francisco Javier González-Castaño (2018) — Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This short paper presents the development of a Spanish version of SimpleNLG — a natural language generation (NLG) library — specifically enhanced for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) applications. The work addresses a gap at the inter…

  • AAC
  • natural language processing
  • pictograms
  • Spanish
  • natural language generation
  • autism
  • communication accessibility
  • video accessibility
  • speech and language

• Adaptable maps for people with autism

  Claudia De Los Rios Perez, David A. McMeekin, Marita Falkmer, Tele Tan (2018) — Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This demonstration paper presents a web application that adapts digital maps for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), addressing the fact that mainstream map services like Google Maps are not designed with the needs, limitations, and capabilit…

  • autism
  • maps
  • user interface
  • personalization
  • navigation
  • cognitive accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • transport
  • sensory processing

• Prefigurative Politics and Passionate Witnessing

  Rua M. Williams, LouAnne E. Boyd (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This experience report traces the unlikely partnership between two researchers — Rua Williams, an autistic disability studies scholar and activist, and LouAnne Boyd, a former behaviour therapist turned HCI researcher — whose work initially placed the…

  • critical disability studies
  • autism
  • research ethics
  • disability justice
  • participatory design
  • research methodology
  • ableism
  • neurodiversity
  • reflexivity

• Lessons Learned in Designing AI for Autistic Adults

  Andrew Begel, John Tang, Sean Andrist, Michael Barnett, Tony Carbary, Piali Choudhury, Edward Cutrell, Alberto Fung, Sasa Junuzovic, Daniel McDuff, Kael Rowan, Shibashankar Sahoo, Jennifer Frances Waldern, Jessica Wolk, Hui Zheng, Annuska Zolyomi (2020) — ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This short paper from Microsoft Research presents a candid account of a design failure and the valuable lessons it produced. The team set out to build Video Calling for Autism (VC4A), a video calling application with an "Expressiveness Mirror" that u…

  • autism
  • artificial intelligence
  • emotion recognition
  • video calling
  • participatory design
  • Wizard of Oz
  • neurodiversity
  • facial expression

• Designing Embodied Musical Interaction for Children with Autism

  Grazia Ragone (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This paper presents OSMoSIS (Observation of Social Motor Synchrony with an Interactive System), an interactive musical system designed to support embodied musical interaction for children with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC) during music therapy ses…

  • autism
  • music therapy
  • embodied interaction
  • motion capture
  • sonification
  • social motor synchrony
  • children
  • assistive technology
  • Microsoft Kinect

• Accessible conversational user interfaces: considerations for design

  Kate Lister, Tim Coughlan, Francisco Iniesto, Nick Freear, Peter Devine (2020) — Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the first comprehensive review of accessibility considerations for conversational user interfaces (CUIs) — a category that includes chatbots, voice-activated personal assistants (like Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri), interactive voic…

  • conversational user interfaces
  • chatbots
  • voice assistants
  • cognitive accessibility
  • mental health
  • autism
  • inclusive design
  • universal design