Literature Reviews

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

• Interactive SIGHT Demo: Textual Summaries of Simple Bar Charts

  Seniz Demir, David Oliver, Edward Schwartz, Stephanie Elzer, Sandra Carberry, Kathleen F. McCoy (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This demonstration paper presents Interactive SIGHT, a browser extension designed to make simple bar charts found in online popular media (newspapers, magazines) accessible to people with visual impairments. The system goes beyond providing raw data …

  • information graphics
  • data visualization
  • blindness
  • screen readers
  • natural language generation
  • alternative text
  • bar charts
  • web accessibility
  • browser extension

• FlashDOM: Interacting with Flash Content from the Document Object Model

  Kyle I. Murray (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This paper presents FlashDOM, a system that exposes Adobe Flash content to assistive technologies by translating Flash's internal structure and interactive elements into standard HTML Document Object Model (DOM) elements. The core problem addressed i…

  • screen readers
  • Adobe Flash
  • Document Object Model
  • web accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • WebAnywhere
  • browser extension
  • ActionScript

• The Interplay Between Web Aesthetics and Accessibility

  Grace Mbipom, Simon Harper (2011) — Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This paper investigates whether the commonly held belief that visually attractive websites are inherently inaccessible holds true. The research was conducted in two studies. In Study 1, 30 sighted web users rated 50 homepages (drawn from Alexa top UK…

  • web accessibility
  • visual design
  • user experience
  • accessibility evaluation
  • heuristic evaluation
  • visual impairment

• Monitoring Accessibility: Large Scale Evaluations at a Geo Political Level

  Silvia Mirri, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Paola Salomoni (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents AMA (Accessibility Monitoring Application), a system designed to monitor web accessibility across large collections of URLs from a geo-political perspective. Developed as part of the VaMoLà project — a collaboration between the Em…

  • web accessibility
  • automated testing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • policy
  • compliance
  • governance
  • metrics
  • data visualization

• How Voice Augmentation Supports Elderly Web Users

  Daisuke Sato, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa, Jiro Tanaka (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo investigates how voice-based augmentation, originally developed for blind screen reader users, can be adapted to support older adults using web applications. The research addresses two key barriers that prevent elde…

  • aging
  • web accessibility
  • voice interface
  • cognitive accessibility
  • auditory interface
  • usability
  • digital inclusion

• Thematic Organization of Web Content for Distraction-Free Text-to-Speech Narration

  Muhammad Asiful Islam, Faisal Ahmed, Yevgen Borodin, I.V. Ramakrishnan (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem in how blind users experience web content through screen readers: the serial, linear narration of complex web pages that contain multiple thematic elements — news stories, ads, navigation taxonomies, and opi…

  • screen readers
  • web segmentation
  • text-to-speech
  • blind users
  • cognitive load
  • web accessibility
  • clustering
  • information retrieval
  • content organization

• Wii Remote as a Web Navigation Device for People with Cerebral Palsy

  Nithin Santhanam (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This short paper evaluates the Nintendo Wii remote as an alternative web navigation device for people with cerebral palsy, compared to a standard wireless mouse. Despite the abundance of accessibility tools, customizable and inexpensive options for p…

  • cerebral palsy
  • alternative input device
  • motor impairment
  • web accessibility
  • Wii remote
  • game controller
  • customization
  • wheelchair users
  • assistive technology

• Accessible Web Automation Interface: A User Study

  Yury Puzis (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents the evaluation of two web automation user interfaces designed to help blind and low-vision screen reader users complete web browsing tasks more efficiently. The fundamental problem is that while the web has bec…

  • web accessibility
  • web automation
  • screen readers
  • blind users
  • low vision
  • JAWS
  • browsing efficiency
  • user study
  • assistive technology
  • implicit automation

• Web Accessibility as a Side Effect

  John T. Richards, Kyle Montague, Vicki L. Hanson (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper investigates the conjecture that improvements in web accessibility have arisen partly as unintentional side effects of changes in web technology and design practices, rather than from deliberate accessibility efforts. Building on a prior 1…

  • web accessibility
  • WCAG
  • CSS
  • semantic markup
  • search engine optimization
  • responsive design
  • web standards
  • longitudinal study
  • curb cut effect
  • accessibility trends

• Accessible Skimming: Faster Screen Reading of Web Pages

  Faisal Ahmed (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This doctoral consortium paper presents an automated approach to enable non-visual skimming of web pages for screen reader users. Sighted people routinely skim web content through quick eye movements (saccades) that let them glance over headlines and…

  • screen readers
  • blind users
  • web accessibility
  • text summarization
  • natural language processing
  • skimming
  • information overload
  • aural browsing
  • cognitive load