Literature Reviews

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

• Real-Time Accessibility Dashboards for Higher Education

  Beatriz Patatas, Carlos Duarte, Leticia Seixas Pereira (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Patatas, Duarte, and Seixas Pereira (University of Lisbon and University of Porto) present an open-source Moodle plugin that integrates real-time PDF accessibility evaluation into the content-upload workflow and aggregates results into an institution…

  • higher education accessibility
  • learning management system
  • Moodle
  • PDF accessibility
  • accessibility monitoring
  • accessibility dashboard
  • inclusive education
  • WCAG
  • remediation
  • organisational accessibility

• Lost in Instructions: Study of Blind Users' Experiences with DIY Manuals and AI-Rewritten Instructions for Assembly, Operation, and Troubleshooting of Tangible Products

  Monalika Padma Reddy, Aruna Balasubramanian, Jiawei Zhou, Xiaojun Bi, IV Ramakrishnan, Vikas Ashok (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Blind users increasingly reach for AI tools like Be My AI (Be My Eyes' GPT-4-powered assistant) and ChatGPT to interpret the printed and PDF product manuals that accompany consumer goods - flat-pack furniture, alarm clocks, timers, ring lights, smart…

  • blind and low vision
  • generative AI
  • large language model
  • assistive technology
  • document accessibility
  • PDF accessibility
  • usability testing
  • hallucination
  • spatial reasoning
  • inclusive design

• iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility

  Peya Mowar, Aaron Steinfeld, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper from Mowar, Steinfeld, and Bigham (Carnegie Mellon) presents iTagPDF, an automated system for tagging academic research PDFs so they are accessible to screen reader users. The authors argue that PDF accessibility has remained a pe…

  • PDF accessibility
  • tagged PDF
  • PDF remediation
  • automated accessibility
  • document layout analysis
  • LLM
  • vision-language models
  • LaTeX
  • alt text
  • reading order
  • scholarly publishing
  • automated testing

• FormA11y — Research and Development of a Tool for Remediating PDF Forms for Accessibility

  Sparsh Paliwal, Joshua Hoeflich, J. Bern Jordan, Rajiv Jain, Vlad I. Morariu, Alexa Siu, Jonathan Lazar (2025) — ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Vol. 32, No. 1

  Paliwal and colleagues — a team spanning the University of Maryland's Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA), Northwestern, and Adobe Research — tackle a problem that has been largely overlooked in PDF accessibility research: the remedi…

  • PDF accessibility
  • PDF forms
  • PDF/UA
  • document accessibility
  • remediation tools
  • born-accessible
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • machine learning
  • usability study
  • accessibility tooling

• MathPlayer V2.1: Web-based Math Accessibility

  Neil Soiffer (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper describes MathPlayer v2.1, a plug-in developed by Design Science, Inc. that renders MathML visually in Microsoft Internet Explorer and Adobe Acrobat/Reader while providing extensive accessibility features for people with print disabilities…

  • mathematical accessibility
  • MathML
  • screen readers
  • braille
  • print disabilities
  • synchronized highlighting
  • math-to-speech
  • PDF accessibility
  • learning disabilities

• An Uninteresting Tour Through Why Our Research Papers Aren't Accessible

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Erin L. Brady, Cole Gleason, Anhong Guo, David A. Shamma (2016) — Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA 2016)

  This paper provides a candid examination of why academic research papers, delivered almost exclusively as PDFs, remain largely inaccessible to people with disabilities. The authors — who have spent years actively trying to improve the situation — tra…

  • PDF accessibility
  • document accessibility
  • academic publishing
  • screen readers
  • alternative text

• Development and Evaluation of a Tool for Assisting Content Creators in Making PDF Files More Accessible

  Debashish Pradhan, Tripti Rajput, Aravind Jembu Rajkumar, Jonathan Lazar, Rajiv Jain, Vlad I. Morariu, Varun Manjunatha (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents the development and evaluation of "Ally," a web-based tool designed to help content creators remediate PDF documents for accessibility. While trillions of PDF documents exist online, only a small fraction include the metadata nece…

  • PDF accessibility
  • document remediation
  • content tagging
  • reading order
  • accessible tables
  • heading structure
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers
  • usability study

• Author Reflections on Creating Accessible Academic Papers

  Rachel Menzies, Garreth W. Tigwell, Michael Crabb (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This mixed-methods study investigates why academic papers remain inaccessible despite available guidance from SIGACCESS and others. The researchers analyzed 3,866 content elements (tables, charts, images) from 330 ASSETS conference papers spanning 20…

  • document accessibility
  • PDF accessibility
  • academic publishing
  • alt text
  • data visualization
  • content elements
  • accessible authoring

• Mathematical Content Browsing for Print-disabled Readers Based on Virtual-world Exploration and Audio-visual Sensory Substitution

  Rynhardt Kruger, Febe De Wet, Thomas Niesler (2023) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This research addresses a critical accessibility gap: mathematical equations in PDF documents are largely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired readers. While standards like MathML exist for encoding accessible mathematics, most scientific and …

  • mathematical accessibility
  • sensory substitution
  • PDF accessibility
  • blind users
  • sonification
  • screen readers
  • STEM accessibility
  • audio feedback

• Accessibility Approach to Adopting Web Technologies

  Neil King, Damien McCormack (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents findings from a comprehensive Australian Government-commissioned study by Vision Australia into the accessibility of the PDF format for people with disabilities. The three-phase research combined user consultation (focus groups wi…

  • PDF accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • blind and low vision
  • screen readers
  • document accessibility
  • government accessibility
  • user testing
  • accessibility policy