Literature Reviews

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

• Information overload in non-visual web transaction: context analysis spells relief

  Jalal Mahmud (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '07)

  This short ASSETS 2007 poster paper from Jalal Mahmud at Stony Brook University describes ongoing PhD research into reducing the information overload that blind users experience when completing multi-step web transactions — shopping, registrations, b…

  • screen readers
  • non-visual web access
  • web page segmentation
  • context analysis
  • web transactions
  • information overload
  • blindness and low vision
  • VoiceXML
  • machine learning
  • support vector machine
  • web accessibility
  • JAWS
  • IBM Home Page Reader

• A Flexible VXML Interpreter for Non-Visual Web Access

  Yevgen Borodin (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This doctoral consortium paper from Stony Brook University presents VXMLSurf, an open-source VoiceXML interpreter being developed as part of the HearSay project for non-visual web browsing. VoiceXML is the W3C standard for specifying interactive voic…

  • VoiceXML
  • non-visual browsing
  • voice browser
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • speech recognition
  • web accessibility
  • open source

• VoxBoox: A System for Automatic Generation of Interactive Talking Books

  Aanchal Jain, Gopal Gupta (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This poster paper from the University of Texas at Dallas presents VoxBoox, a system that automatically converts HTML-coded digital books into interactive talking books accessible via telephone. The system works by translating HTML pages into VoiceXML…

  • talking books
  • VoiceXML
  • aural navigation
  • visual impairment
  • blind users
  • HTML transformation
  • text-to-speech
  • accessible publishing

• The HearSay Non-Visual Web Browser

  Yevgen Borodin, Jalal Mahmud, I. V. Ramakrishnan, Amanda Stent (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the original HearSay non-visual web browser (version 1/2), developed at Stony Brook University in collaboration with the Helen Keller Services for the Blind. HearSay is a free, open-source, cross-platform browser written in Java t…

  • non-visual web browser
  • screen readers
  • blind users
  • web accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • machine learning
  • VoiceXML
  • speech recognition
  • navigation
  • assistive technology
  • open source

• Dialog Generation for Voice Browsing

  Zan Sun, Amanda Stent, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2006) — Proceedings of the 2006 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A): Building the Mobile Web: Rediscovering Accessibility?

  This paper presents HearSay, a voice browser system developed at Stony Brook University that provides speech-driven web access for people with visual disabilities. Unlike conventional screen readers that force users to arrow through a linearized, sin…

  • voice browsing
  • screen readers
  • visual impairment
  • web page segmentation
  • content summarization
  • machine learning
  • VoiceXML
  • dialog systems
  • assistive technology