Literature Reviews

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

• A Personalizable Mobile Sound Detector App Design for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Users

  Danielle Bragg, Nicholas Huynh, Richard E. Ladner (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper presents the design and evaluation of a personalizable mobile phone app that detects sounds of interest to deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) users by learning from training examples recorded by the user themselves. Unlike existing commercial …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • mobile accessibility
  • machine learning
  • sound detection
  • personalization
  • assistive technology
  • user research

• Ad-Hoc Access to Musical Sound for Deaf Individuals

  Benjamin Petry, Thavishi Illandara, Juan Pablo Forero, Suranga Nanayakkara (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This poster paper presents MuSS-Bits (Music Sensory Substitution Bits), a wearable sensor-display system that enables deaf individuals to explore musical sound from various audio sources with real-time vibrotactile feedback. While existing sensory su…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • music accessibility
  • sensory substitution
  • haptic technology
  • wearable technology
  • assistive technology

• Improving Real-Time Captioning Experiences for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

  Saba Kawas, George Karalis, Tzu Wen, Richard E. Ladner (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper takes a holistic, qualitative approach to understanding deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) university students' experiences with real-time captioning in mainstream classrooms, examining both human-based captioning (CART — Communication Access …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • real-time captioning
  • CART
  • automatic speech recognition
  • education
  • co-design
  • inclusive design
  • captioning
  • classroom accessibility

• Nothing to Hide: Aesthetic Customization of Hearing Aids and Cochlear Implants in an Online Community

  Halley P. Profita, Abigale Stangl, Laura Matuszewska, Sigrunn Sky, Shaun K. Kane (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper analyzes aesthetic customization practices within a Facebook community of over 4,800 members dedicated to decorating and personalizing hearing aids (HAs) and cochlear implants (CIs). Approximately 48 million people in the United States (20…

  • hearing aid
  • cochlear implant
  • DIY assistive technology
  • social accessibility
  • disability identity
  • online communities
  • self-expression
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • disability culture

• Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Perspectives on Imperfect Automatic Speech Recognition for Captioning One-on-One Meetings

  Larwan Berke, Christopher Caulfield, Matt Huenerfauth (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper investigates whether and how to display word-level confidence information from Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems in real-time captions for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) users during one-on-one meetings with hearing people. ASR en…

  • deaf accessibility
  • automatic speech recognition
  • captioning
  • communication
  • user research
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • confidence display

• Evaluating the Usability of Automatically Generated Captions for People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

  Sushant Kafle, Matt Huenerfauth (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem in automatic captioning for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) users: the standard metric used to evaluate automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems — Word Error Rate (WER) — poorly predicts how usable the resu…

  • captioning
  • automatic speech recognition
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • evaluation methods
  • natural language processing
  • real-time captioning
  • metrics

• Deaf, Hard of Hearing, and Hearing Perspectives on Using Automatic Speech Recognition in Conversation

  Abraham Glasser, Kesavan Kushalnagar, Raja Kushalnagar (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This experience report describes the real-world accessibility challenges encountered by five participants — two deaf, one hard of hearing, and two hearing — including the authors, when using the top seven most popular ASR applications (DEAFCOM, Drago…

  • automatic speech recognition
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • speech recognition
  • communication accessibility
  • voice interface
  • workplace accessibility
  • aural interface

• Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs for Detecting Sign Language Content in Video Sharing Sites

  Frank M. Shipman, Satyakiran Duggina, Caio D.D. Monteiro, Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper addresses the problem of automatically detecting sign language content in videos on sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. For many deaf and hard-of-hearing people, sign language is their primary communication medium, and they rely on o…

  • sign language
  • computer vision
  • video classification
  • information retrieval
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • machine learning
  • video accessibility
  • content detection

• Sign Language Support System for Viewing Sports Programs

  Tsubasa Uchida, Taro Miyazaki, Makiko Azuma, Shuichi Umeda, Naoto Kato, Hideki Sumiyoshi, Yuko Yamanouchi, Nobuyuki Hiruma (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper from NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) presents a prototype system that provides Japanese Sign Language (JSL) support for deaf and hard-of-hearing viewers watching sports broadcasts. The system was developed in response to…

  • sign language
  • signing avatar
  • Japanese Sign Language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • media accessibility
  • sports accessibility
  • computer graphics
  • broadcast accessibility

• Real-Time Depth-Camera Based Hand Tracking for ASL Recognition

  Brandon Taylor, Anind Dey, Daniel Siewiorek, Asim Smailagic (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper validates the use of a publicly available real-time hand tracking algorithm (Sphere-Mesh) for recognizing American Sign Language (ASL) handshapes using a depth camera. Sign Language Recognition (SLR) has long been a motivatin…

  • sign language recognition
  • hand tracking
  • computer vision
  • depth camera
  • machine learning
  • American Sign Language
  • fingerspelling
  • deaf and hard of hearing