Literature Reviews

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

• Delivering Sign Language in a Live Planetarium Show Using Head-Mounted Displays and Infrared Light

  Michael D. Jones, M. Jeannette Lawler (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper presents a system for delivering real-time American Sign Language (ASL) narration during live planetarium shows using head-mounted displays (HMDs) and infrared light. Planetariums pose unique accessibility challenges for deaf and hard-of-h…

  • sign language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • head-mounted display
  • augmented reality
  • informal learning
  • museum accessibility
  • STEM education
  • ASL

• AfricaSign -- A Crowd-sourcing Platform for the Documentation of STEM Vocabulary in African Sign Languages

  Abdelhadi Soudi, Kristof Van Laerhoven, Elmostafa Bou-Souf (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper presents AfricaSign, a web-based crowdsourcing platform designed to enable African Deaf communities to document their endangered sign languages, with a focus on early-grade and STEM vocabulary. Most African sign languages are…

  • sign language
  • Africa
  • endangered languages
  • crowdsourcing
  • signing avatar
  • STEM accessibility
  • Deaf education
  • language documentation
  • digital inclusion
  • developing nations

• Chat in the Hat: A Portable Interpreter for Sign Language Users

  Larwan Berke, William Thies, Danielle Bragg (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper addresses a fundamental limitation of Video Remote Interpreting (VRI) for Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) sign language users: existing smartphone-based VRI requires the DHH person to either hold the phone with one hand (reducing signing to…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • video remote interpreting
  • augmented reality
  • workplace accessibility
  • wearable technology
  • ASL

• Student and Teacher Perspectives of Learning ASL in an Online Setting

  Garreth W. Tigwell, Roshan L Peiris, Stacey Watson, Gerald M. Garavuso, Heather Miller (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This experience report examines the challenges and opportunities of teaching and learning American Sign Language (ASL) online during the COVID-19 pandemic, from the perspectives of both students and a Deaf instructor at Rochester Institute of Technol…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • education accessibility
  • videoconferencing
  • remote learning
  • communication accessibility
  • COVID-19

• Teleconference Accessibility and Guidelines for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users

  Raja S. Kushalnagar, Christian Vogler (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This experience report from two Gallaudet University researchers examines the accessibility challenges that deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) users face in teleconference environments, drawing on nearly a decade of first-hand participation across platfo…

  • deaf
  • hard of hearing
  • teleconferencing
  • remote participation
  • sign language
  • captions
  • video conferencing
  • cognitive load
  • communication access

• Teaching ASL Signs using Signing Avatars and Immersive Learning in Virtual Reality

  Lorna C. Quandt, Jason Lamberton, Athena S. Willis, Jianye Wang, Kaitlyn Weeks, Emily Kubicek, Melissa Malzkuhn (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This demonstration paper presents SAIL (Signing Avatars & Immersive Learning), the first ASL instructional system built for immersive virtual reality. Developed at Gallaudet University by a majority-Deaf team, SAIL uses a signing avatar — a computer-…

  • sign language
  • American Sign Language
  • virtual reality
  • signing avatars
  • motion capture
  • embodied learning
  • Deaf accessibility
  • language learning
  • gesture tracking

• Exploring Collection of Sign Language Datasets: Privacy, Participation, and Model Performance

  Danielle Bragg, Oscar Koller, Naomi Caselli, William Thies (2020) — Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This paper tackles a fundamental tension in building machine learning systems for marginalized communities: the need for large training datasets versus the privacy risks of collecting data from small, identifiable populations. The authors focus on si…

  • sign language
  • privacy
  • machine learning
  • data collection
  • Deaf culture
  • computer vision
  • sign language recognition

• American Sign Language Video Anonymization to Support Online Participation of Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users

  Sooyeon Lee, Abraham Glasser, Becca Dingman, Zhaoyang Xia, Dimitris Metaxas, Carol Neidle, Matt Huenerfauth (2021) — ASSETS '21: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) individuals who prefer to communicate in American Sign Language (ASL) face a unique privacy barrier online: because ASL is a visual language conveyed through movements of the face, head, hands, and torso, and because th…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • American Sign Language
  • anonymization
  • privacy
  • face transformation
  • online participation
  • video communication

• Lost in Translation: Challenges and Barriers to Sign Language-Accessible User Research

  Amelie Unger, Dieter P. Wallach, Nicole Jochems (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This experience report describes the challenges hearing researchers face when conducting user research with sign language (SL) users, based on the authors' experience running remote focus groups with German Sign Language (GSL) users as part of the AV…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • user research
  • focus groups
  • language accessibility
  • ability-based design
  • research methods
  • German Sign Language
  • inclusion

• I See What You're Saying: A Literature Review of Eye Tracking Research in Communication of Deaf or Hard of Hearing Users

  Chanchal Agrawal, Roshan L Peiris (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper presents a comprehensive literature review of 55 eye-tracking studies examining the gaze patterns and communication behaviours of deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals. The authors systematically searched ACM, IEEE, Google Scholar, and…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • eye tracking
  • eye gaze
  • sign language
  • lip-reading
  • captions
  • attention management
  • visual communication
  • literature review