Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
104 results found tagged sonification.
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Data Sonification for Screen-Reader Users: When and When Not to Use
This paper from the University of Washington assesses when data sonification — non-speech audio representations of data visualizations — is and is not beneficial for screen-reader users. Despite sonification dating back to 1974 and growing adoption i…
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Sensory Glasses for the Visually Impaired
This demonstration paper presents the design and development of a low-cost wearable assistive device — sensory glasses — intended to help visually impaired people navigate their surroundings. The device addresses a well-known limitation of the tradit…
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WatchOut: Obstacle Sonification for People with Visual Impairment or Blindness
This paper presents WatchOut, a sonification technique that conveys real-time information about obstacle characteristics to people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) through non-verbal sound, enabling them to avoid obstacles while walking. The …
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Non-Visual Beats: Redesigning the Groove Pizza
This demonstration paper describes the accessible redesign of the Groove Pizza, a popular free web-based drum step-sequencer developed by NYU’s Music Experience Design Lab (MusEDLab) that reaches thousands of users per month. The original Groove Pizz…
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Making Nonvisually: Lessons from the Field
This experience report shares lessons from a team of researchers, activists, and blind makers who conducted workshops introducing Arduino electronics to blind hobbyists and guided assembly of an accessible voltmeter prototype. The authors — including…
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Revisiting Blind Photography in the Context of Teachable Object Recognizers
This paper introduces a real-time audio-haptic feedback system to help people with visual impairments frame objects in their smartphone camera when training teachable object recognizers. The challenge is that teachable recognizers — which let users t…
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AudioFunctions.web: Multimodal Exploration of Mathematical Function Graphs
This full research paper presents AudioFunctions.web, a web application that enables blind and visually impaired people to explore mathematical function graphs through a combination of sonification, earcons, and speech synthesis. The system is the pl…
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Multimodal Exploration of Mathematical Function Graphs with AudioFunctions.web
This demonstration paper presents AudioFunctions.web, a web-based system designed to make mathematical function graphs accessible to people who are blind or have visual impairments. Function graphs are a fundamental tool in mathematics education and …
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Haptic and Auditive Mesh Inspection for Blind 3D Modelers
This paper addresses a critical gap in accessible 3D modeling for blind users. While constructive geometry programming languages like OpenSCAD allow blind modelers to write text-based code to create 3D objects (accessible via screen readers and brail…
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SoundLines: Exploration of Line Segments through Sonification and Multi-touch Interaction
This paper presents SoundLines, a mobile application designed to help children with visual impairments explore and understand line segments on a touchscreen using sonification and multi-touch interaction. The system addresses a fundamental challenge …