Literature Reviews

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

• Addressing Accessibility Barriers in Programming for People with Visual Impairments: A Literature Review

  Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, Stephanie Ludi (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This systematic literature review analyzes 70 papers published between 2000-2020 examining accessibility barriers in programming for people with visual impairments and proposed solutions. The review covers both professional programmers and students l…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • programming
  • IDE accessibility
  • screen readers
  • code navigation
  • block-based programming
  • tangible programming
  • computer science education
  • literature review

• Tangibles + Programming + Audio Stories = Fun

  Varsha Koushik, Shaun K. Kane (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This poster introduces Story Blocks, a tangible programming toolkit designed to make block-based programming accessible to blind and visually impaired users. Block-based programming languages like Scratch and Blockly are popular tools for teaching ch…

  • programming education
  • blindness
  • visual impairment
  • tangible interaction
  • children
  • inclusive design
  • STEM accessibility
  • block-based programming

• Making the Blockly Library Accessible via Touchscreen

  Logan B. Caraco, Sebastian Deibel, Yufan Ma, Lauren R. Milne (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This demonstration paper presents two prototype designs for making Google's Blockly library — the foundation underlying popular block-based programming environments (BBPEs) like Scratch, MIT App Inventor, and the Code.org curriculum — accessible to u…

  • visual impairment
  • block-based programming
  • education
  • screen readers
  • ARIA
  • touchscreen accessibility
  • K-12 education
  • coding education

• How Teachers of the Visually Impaired Compensate with the Absence of Accessible Block-Based Languages

  Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Stephanie Ludi (2021) — Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper reports on an interview study with twelve teachers of K-12 students with visual impairments (TVIs) across the United States, investigating how they navigate the lack of fully accessible block-based programming environments. Block-based pro…

  • visual impairment
  • block-based programming
  • K-12 education
  • computer science education
  • accessible programming
  • teachers of the visually impaired
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers

• Accessible Blockly: An Accessible Block-Based Programming Library for People with Visual Impairments

  Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, Stephanie Ludi (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents Accessible Blockly, a prototype library that augments Google's Blockly — the open-source library underlying most mainstream block-based programming environments (Scratch, MakeCode, AppInventor) — with keyboard and screen reader in…

  • block-based programming
  • screen readers
  • keyboard navigation
  • blind programmers
  • computer science education
  • visual impairment
  • WAI-ARIA
  • coding accessibility