Literature Reviews

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

• A Preliminary Study of Wearable Olfactory-Thermal Feedback for Immersive VR Cultural Heritage

  Hanbing Wang, Xiang Li, Kexin Nie, Yunfeng Shu, Xizi Liu, Xiwen Liu, Yingying Liu, Zhixin Cai, Mingjie Zhou, Xianqi Wang, Li Zhao, Chunling Wu, Lie Zhang (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstract reports a preliminary between-subjects user study (N=52) of NeckScents, a lightweight neck-worn wearable that delivers short, pre-authored pulses of scented warm airflow near the face to augment audiovisual VR. The aut…

  • virtual reality
  • multisensory interaction
  • olfactory display
  • thermal feedback
  • cultural heritage
  • wearable technology
  • immersion
  • aesthetic experience

• Beyond Descriptions: A Generative Scene2Audio Framework for Blind and Low-Vision Users to Experience Vista Landscapes

  Chitralekha Gupta, Jing Peng, Ashwin Ram, Shreyas Sridhar, Christophe Jouffrais, Suranga Nanayakkara (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Scene description apps (Seeing AI, Be My AI, Envision) do a reasonable job of telling blind and low-vision (BLV) users what is in front of them, but they are built for utility - 'there is a chair'. They fail at the aesthetic, leisure, emotional exper…

  • blind and low vision
  • sonification
  • spatial audio
  • generative AI
  • psychoacoustics
  • scene description
  • image description
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • aesthetic experience

• Does It Look Beautiful? Communicating Aesthetic Information about Artwork to the Visually Impaired

  Caroline Marie Galbraith (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper explores how aesthetic information about visual art is communicated to people who are visually impaired, based on observational data from a study where blind individuals and sighted companions explored an art gallery together on the Univer…

  • visual art
  • museum accessibility
  • blindness
  • image description
  • communication
  • aesthetic experience
  • cultural accessibility