Literature Reviews

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

• Planning, Reasoning, and Agents for Non-Visual Navigation of Tables and Frames

  Enrico Pontelli, Tran Cao Son (2002) — Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper from New Mexico State University extends previous work on a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for non-visual table navigation by reinterpreting it within the framework of formal action theory. The core problem addressed is that HTML tables an…

  • table accessibility
  • screen readers
  • non-visual navigation
  • semantic navigation
  • artificial intelligence
  • domain specific language
  • HTML tables

• A Domain Specific Language Framework for Non-Visual Browsing of Complex HTML Structures

  E. Pontelli, W. Xiong, G. Gupta, A. I. Karshmer (2000) — Proceedings of the Fourth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '00)

  This paper from New Mexico State University, University of Texas at Dallas, and University of South Florida presents a framework for navigating complex HTML structures — specifically tables, frames, and forms — that are particularly challenging for s…

  • table accessibility
  • non-visual browsing
  • screen readers
  • domain specific language
  • HTML tables
  • semantic structure
  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • conceptual graphs

• Programming for Usability in Nonvisual User Interfaces

  Gerhard Weber (1998) — Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This short paper from Harz University addresses a fundamental problem in accessible software development: sighted developers working in visual programming environments must create interfaces that are usable nonvisually, but standard software engineer…

  • accessibility API
  • screen readers
  • software engineering
  • nonvisual interface
  • usability
  • accessibility testing
  • MSAA

• A Web Navigation Tool for the Blind

  Mary Zajicek, Chris Powell, Chris Reeves (1998) — Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This short paper from Oxford Brookes University and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) presents BrookesTalk, a prototype speech-output web browser designed to help blind users make rapid decisions about whether a web page is useful to …

  • web accessibility
  • blindness
  • information retrieval
  • screen readers
  • text summarization
  • nonvisual web access
  • web browsers

• User Interface of a Home Page Reader

  Chieko Asakawa, Takashi Itoh (1998) — Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper from IBM Japan's Tokyo Research Laboratory describes the design and evaluation of Home Page Reader, one of the earliest dedicated web browsers for blind users, which became an IBM Japan product in October 1997. The paper opens by framing t…

  • screen readers
  • web accessibility
  • blindness
  • text-to-speech
  • nonvisual web access
  • user interface design
  • assistive technology

• Investigating Sighted Users' Browsing Behaviour to Assist Web Accessibility

  Eleni Michailidou, Simon Harper, Sean Bechhofer (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper presents an eye tracking study investigating how sighted users browse web pages, with the goal of using these insights to improve web accessibility for visually impaired users. The core argument is that understanding sighted users' visual …

  • eye tracking
  • web accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • web design
  • visual complexity
  • screen readers
  • user research
  • browsing behavior
  • transcoding

• A user evaluation of the SADIe transcoder

  Darren Lunn, Sean Bechhofer, Simon Harper (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper presents a user evaluation of SADIe (Structural-Semantics for Accessibility and Device Independence), a system that uses Semantic Web technologies to make web pages more accessible to screen reader users. The core problem SADIe addresses i…

  • web accessibility
  • screen readers
  • semantic web
  • transcoding
  • visual impairment
  • ontology
  • web content transformation
  • CSS
  • assistive technology

• TAIG: textually accessible information graphics

  Seniz Demir (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This short paper presents TAIG (Textually Accessible Information Graphics), a system designed to make bar charts and other information graphics accessible to people with visual impairments by generating coherent natural language summaries. TAIG exten…

  • data visualization
  • graph summarization
  • screen readers
  • visual impairment
  • natural language generation
  • bar charts
  • alternative text
  • information graphics

• MySpeechWeb: software to facilitate the construction and deployment of speech applications on the web

  Richard A. Frost, Ali Karaki, David A. Dufour, Josh Greig, Rahmatullah Hafiz, Yue Shi, Shawn Daichendt, Shahriar Chandon, Justin Barolak, Randy J. Fortier (2008) — Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This short paper presents MySpeechWeb, an open-source platform for creating and deploying voice-in/voice-out speech applications on the web. The authors identify a significant gap: despite the potential of speech interfaces to improve web access for …

  • speech interfaces
  • voice interaction
  • web accessibility
  • open source
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers
  • natural language processing

• Enriching Web Information Scent for Blind Users

  Markel Vigo, Barbara Leporini, Fabio Paternò (2009) — Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper investigates whether annotating web links with accessibility scores of their target pages can improve navigation efficiency for blind screen reader users. The core idea draws on information foraging theory: just as sighted users follow vis…

  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • information scent
  • information foraging
  • adaptive navigation
  • automated evaluation
  • web usability