Literature Reviews
Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.
276 results found tagged blindness.
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Text-to-Speeches: Evaluating the Perception of Concurrent Speech by Blind People
This paper investigates whether blind people can leverage the Cocktail Party Effect—the human ability to focus on one speech source among several while still detecting relevant content in the background—to more efficiently scan digital information. S…
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Headlock: A Wearable Navigation Aid that Helps Blind Cane Users Traverse Large Open Spaces
This paper presents HEADLOCK, a navigation aid for optical head-mounted displays (OHMDs) like Google Glass that helps blind cane users traverse large open spaces—environments that are particularly challenging because they lack the tactile features (w…
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Tactile Graphics with a Voice: Using QR Codes to Access Text in Tactile Graphics
This paper presents Tactile Graphics with a Voice (TGV), a system that makes text labels in tactile graphics accessible by replacing Braille labels with QR codes that can be scanned and read aloud using a smartphone. The motivation is significant: wh…
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Orienting Kinesthetically: A Haptic Handheld Wayfinder for People with Visual Impairments
This paper presents a novel haptic direction indicator that provides real-time navigational guidance through kinesthetic cues rather than audio or vibrotactile feedback. The device exploits a perceptual phenomenon called the "pseudo-attraction force …
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Spindex (Speech Index) Improves Auditory Menu Acceptance and Navigation Performance
This paper introduces the "spindex" (speech index), a novel auditory cue designed to improve navigation through spoken menus on mobile devices. The spindex works by pronouncing the first letter of each menu item before the full text-to-speech (TTS) r…
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Multimodal Presentation of Two-Dimensional Charts: An Investigation Using Open Office XML and Microsoft Excel
This paper presents a comprehensive system for making Microsoft Excel charts accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired through multimodal haptic and audio feedback. The system extracts chart data from the OOXML format introduced in Exce…
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Usability of a Multimodal Video Game to Improve Navigation Skills for Blind Children
This paper presents an evaluative study of a multimodal system combining a custom haptic device (Digital Clock Carpet) with a 3D audio-based video game (MOVA3D) to develop orientation and mobility (O&M) skills in blind school-aged children. The Digit…
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Haptic 3D Surface Representation of Table-Based Data for People With Visual Impairments
This paper introduces "relief charts"—3D surface representations of standard data visualizations (bar graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, radar charts) designed to make complex tabular data accessible to people with visual impairments. The approach is…
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A Performance Comparison of On-Hand versus On-Phone Nonvisual Input by Blind and Sighted Users
This study investigates whether using one's own hand as an input surface offers performance advantages over touchscreen phones for blind users performing nonvisual interaction. On-body input is particularly attractive for blind users because it provi…
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Multimodal Perception of Histological Images for Persons Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired
This research addresses a critical barrier preventing blind or visually impaired (BVI) students and scientists from participating in STEM laboratory work: the inability to perceive real-time visual scientific data from instruments like light microsco…