Literature Reviews

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

• Autistic Adults' Perspectives on Self-Expression and Dyadic vs. Group Interactions in AR Telepresence

  Mahrukh Tauseef, Alexandra Watkins, Zalen Ingram, Rendong Zhang, Akshith Ullal, Ritam Ghosh, Amy Sue Weitlauf, Zachary Warren, Nilanjan Sarkar (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper investigates how autistic adults experience augmented reality (AR) telepresence as a medium for social interaction, a population whose needs are largely absent from existing avatar and social VR/AR research. Motivated by the high …

  • autism
  • augmented reality
  • avatars
  • social presence
  • telepresence
  • participatory design
  • self-expression
  • neurodiversity
  • sensory sensitivity
  • co-design

• Sign Language Recognition, Generation, and Translation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

  Danielle Bragg, Oscar Koller, Mary Bellard, Larwan Berke, Patrick Boudreault, Annelies Braffort, Naomi Caselli, Matt Huenerfauth, Hernisa Kacorri, Tessa Verhoef, Christian Vogler, Meredith Ringel Morris (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary overview of sign language processing — encompassing recognition, generation, and translation — produced through a two-day workshop bringing together 39 experts from computer science, linguistics, …

  • sign language
  • Deaf culture
  • computer vision
  • natural language processing
  • machine translation
  • sign language recognition
  • sign language generation
  • avatars
  • ASL
  • interdisciplinary research
  • dataset challenges

• "It's Just Part of Me:" Understanding Avatar Diversity and Self-presentation of People with Disabilities in Social Virtual Reality

  Kexin Zhang, Elmira Deldari, Zhicong Lu, Yaxing Yao, Yuhang Zhao (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper investigates how people with disabilities (PWD) perceive, design, and use avatars for self-presentation and disability disclosure in social virtual reality (VR) platforms. The researchers employed a two-part methodology: first, a systemati…

  • social virtual reality
  • avatars
  • disability disclosure
  • self-presentation
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • visual impairments
  • identity
  • inclusive design
  • virtual worlds

• A Diary Study in Social Virtual Reality: Impact of Avatars with Disability Signifiers on the Social Experiences of People with Disabilities

  Kexin Zhang, Elmira Deldari, Yaxing Yao, Yuhang Zhao (2023) — ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents a two-week diary study exploring how avatars with disability signifiers (DS) affect the social experiences of people with disabilities (PWD) in social virtual reality platforms, specifically VRChat. Disability signifiers are visua…

  • social virtual reality
  • disability signifiers
  • avatars
  • harassment
  • identity expression
  • disability disclosure
  • VRChat
  • diary study

• "I Try to Represent Myself as I Am": Self-Presentation Preferences of People with Invisible Disabilities through Embodied Social VR Avatars

  Ria J. Gualano, Lucy Jiang, Kexin Zhang, Tanisha Shende, Andrea Stevenson Won, Shiri Azenkot (2024) — ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates how people with invisible disabilities want to represent their disability identity through avatars in social virtual reality environments. While prior research has explored avatar-based disability disclosure for blind and d/De…

  • invisible disability
  • virtual reality
  • avatars
  • self-presentation
  • disability disclosure
  • identity
  • social VR
  • ADHD
  • chronic conditions
  • neurodiversity

• Is it Part of Me? Exploring Experiences of Inclusive Avatar Use For Visible and Invisible Disabilities in Social VR

  Katrin Angerbauer, Phoenix Van Wagoner, Tim Halach, Jonas Vogelsang, Natalie Hube, Andria Smith, Ksenia Keplinger, Michael Sedlmair (2024) — ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the lived experiences of people with disabilities (PWD) using inclusive avatars — avatars featuring disability signifiers — in the social VR platform VRChat. While prior research has documented accessibility barriers and haras…

  • virtual reality
  • avatars
  • invisible disability
  • visible disability
  • social VR
  • identity
  • self-representation
  • harassment
  • inclusion