Literature Reviews

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

• Understanding Screen-Reader Users' Experiences with Online Data Visualizations

  Ather Sharif, Sanjana Shivani Chintalapati, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Katharina Reinecke (2021) — ASSETS '21: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  Data visualizations are ubiquitous on the web, communicating everything from health statistics to financial trends, yet their inherently visual nature creates profound barriers for the approximately 7.6 million screen-reader users in the United State…

  • screen readers
  • data visualization
  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • low vision
  • alternative text
  • information access

• Interdependent Variables: Remotely Designing Tactile Graphics for an Accessible Workflow

  Lilian de Greef, Dominik Moritz, Cynthia Bennett (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This experience report documents how a team of blind and sighted colleagues at Apple created an accessible collaborative workflow for a data visualization research project. Rather than focusing on making end products accessible, the paper addresses t…

  • tactile graphics
  • blind and low vision
  • data visualization
  • collaboration
  • accessible workflow
  • remote work
  • interdependence
  • inclusive design

• COVID-19 Highlights the Issues Facing Blind and Visually Impaired People in Accessing Data on the Web

  Alexa F. Siu, Danyang Fan, Gene S-H Kim, Hrishikesh V. Rao, Xavier Vazquez, Sile O'Modhrain, Sean Follmer (2021) — Proceedings of the 18th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This mixed-methods study examines how blind and visually impaired (BVI) people experienced accessing data-driven information on the web during the COVID-19 pandemic — a period when data visualizations such as infection curves, maps of hotspots, and t…

  • data visualization
  • blind and low vision
  • web accessibility
  • COVID-19
  • screen readers
  • sonification
  • data literacy
  • accessible data
  • information access

• A Dataset of Alt Texts from HCI Publications: Analyses and Uses Towards Producing More Descriptive Alt Texts of Data Visualizations in Scientific Papers

  Sanjana Shivani Chintalapati, Jonathan Bragg, Lucy Lu Wang (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper examines the quality and availability of alt text for data visualizations in scientific publications, focusing on papers from the HCI and accessibility communities (CHI and ASSETS conferences, 2010-2020). The authors processed over 25,000 …

  • alt text
  • data visualization
  • scientific documents
  • blind and low vision
  • document accessibility
  • machine learning
  • natural language processing
  • dataset

• Toward supporting quality alt text in computing publications

  Candace Williams, Lilian de Greef, Ed Harris, Leah Findlater, Amy Pavel, Cynthia Bennett (2022) — Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the state of alternative text for figures in computing research publications, an understudied context where figures often convey dense, complex visual information quite different from social media or news imagery. The research…

  • alternative text
  • scientific figures
  • data visualization
  • screen readers
  • document accessibility
  • academic publishing
  • blind and low vision

• Cripping Data Visualizations: Crip Technoscience as a Critical Lens for Designing Digital Access

  Stacy Hsueh, Beatrice Vincenzi, Akshata Murdeshwar, Marianela Ciolfi Felice (2023) — ASSETS 2023: The 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper applies crip technoscience as a critical, generative framework for rethinking how accessible data visualizations are designed. The authors argue that current approaches to visualization accessibility largely treat access as a technical pro…

  • data visualization
  • crip technoscience
  • crip theory
  • blind and low vision
  • speculative design
  • critical disability studies
  • alternative text
  • tactile graphics
  • sonification
  • accessible design

• Azimuth: Designing Accessible Dashboards for Screen Reader Users

  Srinivasan, Arjun, Harshbarger, Tim, Hilliker, Darrell, Mankoff, Jennifer (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents Azimuth, a prototype system that converts JSON-based dashboard specifications into web-based dashboards optimized for screen reader navigation, accompanied by automatically generated textual descriptions to support comprehension a…

  • data visualization
  • screen readers
  • dashboards
  • blind and low vision
  • co-design
  • text generation
  • accessible navigation
  • data analysis

• Comparing Natural Language and Vibro-Audio Modalities for Inclusive STEM Learning with Blind and Low Vision Users

  Justin R. Brown, Stacy A. Doore, Justin K. Dimmel, Norbert Giudice, Nicholas A. Giudice (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2023)

  This study evaluates a multimodal touchscreen diagram system (MDS v 2.0) built on an iPhone that provides blind and low vision (BLV) users with two non-visual methods for accessing graphical STEM content: natural language (NL) descriptions delivered …

  • blind and low vision
  • STEM accessibility
  • data visualization
  • haptic technology
  • multimodal interaction
  • touchscreen
  • education accessibility
  • tactile graphics

• Notably Inaccessible — Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility

  Venkatesh Potluri, Sudheesh Singanamalla, Nussara Tieanklin, Jennifer Mankoff (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first large-scale analysis of the accessibility of computational notebooks — interactive documents combining code, text, and data visualizations that have become the standard tool for data science work. The researchers analyze…

  • computational notebooks
  • data science
  • screen readers
  • blind and visually impaired
  • data visualization
  • alternative text
  • automated testing
  • web accessibility

• Understanding and Improving Drilled-Down Information Extraction from Online Data Visualizations for Screen-Reader Users

  Ather Sharif, Olivia H. Wang, Alida T. Muongchan, Katharina Reinecke, Jacob O. Wobbrock (2023) — Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This full research paper presents a comprehensive investigation into how screen-reader users (SRUs) extract drilled-down information from online data visualizations, and how the VoxLens tool can be improved to support this process. While prior work o…

  • screen readers
  • data visualization
  • voice interface
  • information extraction
  • natural language processing
  • assistive technology
  • data sonification
  • user study