Literature Reviews

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

• Say It My Way: Exploring Control in Conversational Visual Question Answering with Blind Users

  Farnaz Zamiri Zeraati, Yang Cao, Yuehan Qiao, Hal Daumé III, Hernisa Kacorri (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper investigates how blind users can exert control over responses generated by conversational visual question answering (VQA) systems built on vision-language models. While prompting and steering techniques are well established in gen…

  • blind users
  • generative AI
  • visual question answering
  • VQA
  • personalization
  • customization
  • prompt engineering
  • Be My AI
  • large language models
  • assistive technology

• Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Exploratory Study on Assessing the Effectiveness of AI and Accessibility Forums for Blind Users' Support Needs

  Satwik Ram Kodandaram, Jiawei Zhou, Xiaojun Bi, IV Ramakrishnan, Vikas Ashok (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This exploratory interview study with 14 blind screen-reader users examines how they use accessibility-focused online forums (JFW, NVDA groups, AppleVis, r/Blind) and generative AI tools (ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude) to troubleshoot computer-interaction …

  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • accessibility forums
  • generative AI
  • ChatGPT
  • interview study
  • information foraging
  • troubleshooting
  • assistive technology

• Towards Testing the Accessibility of Dynamic Visual Changes in Android Mobile GUI with Multi-Modal LLMs

  Mengxi Zhang, Jianlin Yu, Chen Xu, Jiqun Li, Xinglong Yin, Huaxiao Liu (2026) — ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

  This paper addresses a long-standing gap in mobile accessibility testing: dynamic visual changes in Android GUIs that communicate task status or feedback to sighted users but are invisible to blind users of screen readers such as TalkBack. Examples i…

  • Android
  • mobile accessibility
  • screen readers
  • TalkBack
  • automated testing
  • large language models
  • GPT-4o
  • blind users
  • dynamic content
  • GUI testing
  • prompt engineering

• 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

• 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

• A Prototype of Google Interfaces Modified for Simplifying Interaction for Blind Users

  Patrizia Andronico, Marina Buzzi, Carlos Castillo, Barbara Leporini (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This demo paper from Italy's National Research Council and Università di Roma presents a prototype that restructures Google's search and results pages to be more usable for blind screen reader users. Previous research had shown that blind users took …

  • search engine accessibility
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • JAWS
  • usability
  • Google
  • XSLT
  • heading structure
  • keyboard navigation

• 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

• Interactive Tracking of Movable Objects for the Blind on the Basis of Environment Models and Perception-Oriented Object Recognition Methods

  Andreas Hub, Tim Hartter, Thomas Ertl (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper from the University of Stuttgart presents advances to an indoor navigation and object identification system for blind and deafblind users. The system combines a stereo camera and 3D inertial sensor mounted on a bicycle helmet with detailed…

  • indoor navigation
  • object recognition
  • blind users
  • computer vision
  • assistive technology
  • self-localization
  • 3D modeling
  • face detection
  • orientation and mobility

• Determining the Impact of Computer Frustration on the Mood of Blind Users Browsing the Web

  Jonathan Lazar, Jinjuan Feng, Aaron Allen (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper from Towson University's Universal Usability Laboratory examines how computer frustration affects the mood of 100 blind web users — the first study to investigate the emotional impact of frustrating computing experiences specifically for u…

  • screen readers
  • visual impairment
  • user frustration
  • web accessibility
  • affective computing
  • usability
  • blind users
  • emotional impact

• Using Think Aloud Protocol with Blind Users: A Case for Inclusive Usability Evaluation Methods

  Sambhavi Chandrashekar, Tony Stockman, Deborah Fels, Rachel Benedyk (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper examines whether the Think Aloud Protocol (TAP), one of the most widely used usability evaluation methods, can be effectively applied when testing with blind screen reader users. The study involved six vision-impaired students evaluating a…

  • usability testing
  • think aloud protocol
  • blind users
  • screen readers
  • research methods
  • inclusive design
  • cognitive load
  • user research