Literature Reviews

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

• Reclaiming VR Design Authority: Deaf Signers Shaping Immersive Classrooms

  Shuxu Huffman, Laura South, Matthew James Buckman, Raja Kushalnagar, Francisco Raul Ortega, Abraham Glasser (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This paper reports a Deaf-led, ASL-first study of a VR classroom prototype designed to reduce the persistent "visual attention split" that Deaf students experience in remote and online classrooms, where gaze must constantly shuttle between a signing …

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • deaf tech
  • virtual reality
  • visual attention split
  • american sign language
  • participatory design
  • education
  • deaf-centered design

• Implementation and Evaluation of Animation Controls Sufficient for Conveying ASL Facial Expressions

  Hernisa Kacorri, Matt Huenerfauth (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '14)

  This ASSETS 2014 short paper (2 pages) reports an infrastructure contribution to sign-language-animation research: the authors extended an existing virtual human character (Max, on the open-source EMBR animation platform) with a full set of MPEG-4 Fa…

  • american sign language
  • sign language animation
  • signing avatar
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • facial expression
  • animation
  • accessibility research

• Sign Language Interfaces: Discussing the Field's Biggest Challenges

  Danielle Bragg, Meredith Ringel Morris, Christian Vogler, Raja Kushalnagar, Matt Huenerfauth, Hernisa Kacorri (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20)

  This CHI 2020 Special Interest Group (SIG) meeting paper (5 pages) is an organising document rather than a conventional research paper. It convenes HCI and accessibility researchers working on sign-language interfaces around the five calls-to-action …

  • sign language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • deaf culture
  • american sign language
  • research methodology
  • datasets
  • accessibility research
  • participatory design

• Empirical Investigation of Users' Preferred Timing Parameters for American Sign Language Animations

  Sedeeq Al-khazraji, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20)

  This CHI 2020 Late-Breaking Work (7 pages) investigates a narrow but consequential HCI question: what timing values should be used when generating American Sign Language (ASL) animations from a script, so that Deaf viewers find them comfortable to wa…

  • american sign language
  • sign language animation
  • signing avatar
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • web accessibility
  • natural language processing
  • animation

• Design and Evaluation of Hybrid Search for American Sign Language to English Dictionaries: Making the Most of Imperfect Sign Recognition

  Saad Hassan, Akhter Al Amin, Alexis Gordon, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth (2022) — Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper tackles a practical problem faced by the roughly 200,000 students currently studying American Sign Language (ASL) in the US: how do you look up the meaning of a sign you just saw when you don't know its English gloss? Unlike writt…

  • american sign language
  • sign language
  • sign language recognition
  • search interfaces
  • dictionary
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • human-AI collaboration
  • user experience
  • qualitative research

• Accessibility for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users: Sign Language Conversational User Interfaces

  Abraham Glasser, Vaishnavi Mande, Matt Huenerfauth (2020) — Proceedings of the 2nd Conference on Conversational User Interfaces (CUI '20)

  This short CUI 2020 position paper (3 pages, presented at the CUI@CHI workshop) lays out the research agenda for making voice-based conversational user interfaces (CUIs) — Alexa, Google Assistant, and similar personal assistant devices — accessible t…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • conversational user interfaces
  • personal assistants
  • american sign language
  • automatic speech recognition
  • universal design
  • voice interface

• Deaf Users' Preferences Among Wake-Up Approaches during Sign-Language Interaction with Personal Assistant Devices

  Vaishnavi Mande, Abraham Glasser, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth (2021) — Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '21)

  This CHI 2021 Extended Abstract investigates a narrow but previously unexplored question: if future personal-assistant devices (Alexa, Google Assistant, etc.) could recognise sign language, how should Deaf users wake them up? Current wake-up mechanis…

  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • sign language
  • personal assistants
  • voice interface
  • conversational user interfaces
  • american sign language
  • deaf culture
  • privacy
  • qualitative research

• Analyzing Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Users' Behavior, Usage, and Interaction with a Personal Assistant Device that Understands Sign-Language Input

  Abraham Glasser, Matthew Watkins, Kira Hart, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth (2022) — Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper investigates how Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) ASL signers would actually use a personal assistant device (such as an Amazon Echo Show or Google Home) if it could understand American Sign Language commands. The authors position t…

  • sign language
  • american sign language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • personal assistants
  • voice assistants
  • smart speaker
  • conversational interface
  • sign language recognition
  • accessibility research
  • wizard of oz