Literature Reviews — A11y Paradise

Functional Web Accessibility Techniques and Tools from the University of Illinois

Jon Gunderson, Hadi Bargi Rangin, Nicholas Hoyt (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

This paper presents two complementary tools developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for helping web developers create functionally accessible websites: the CITES/DRES Functional Web Accessibility Best Practices and associated eval…

Gist Summaries for Visually Impaired Surfers

Simon Harper, Neha Patel (2005) — Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

This paper from the University of Manchester addresses a fundamental problem in web accessibility for visually impaired users: the inability to quickly assess a web page's relevance before committing to having the entire page read aloud by a screen r…

Interactive SIGHT Demo: Textual Summaries of Simple Bar Charts

Seniz Demir, David Oliver, Edward Schwartz, Stephanie Elzer, Sandra Carberry, Kathleen F. McCoy (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

This demonstration paper presents Interactive SIGHT, a browser extension designed to make simple bar charts found in online popular media (newspapers, magazines) accessible to people with visual impairments. The system goes beyond providing raw data …

FlashDOM: Interacting with Flash Content from the Document Object Model

Kyle I. Murray (2010) — Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

This paper presents FlashDOM, a system that exposes Adobe Flash content to assistive technologies by translating Flash's internal structure and interactive elements into standard HTML Document Object Model (DOM) elements. The core problem addressed i…

Making the Web Easier to See with Opportunistic Accessibility Improvement

Jeffrey P. Bigham (2014) — ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

This paper introduces the concept of "opportunistic accessibility improvement" — the idea that accessibility enhancements like magnification should be automatically applied to the maximum extent possible without causing negative side effects. The aut…

Customizable Tabular Access to Web Data Records for Convenient Low-vision Screen Magnifier Interaction

Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

This paper introduces TableView+, a browser extension designed to address the significant challenges low-vision screen magnifier users face when browsing websites containing web data records—structured listings such as product catalogs, job postings,…

"Every Website Is a Puzzle!": Facilitating Access to Common Website Features for People with Visual Impairments

Natã M. Barbosa, Jordan Hayes, Smirity Kaushik, Yang Wang (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

This paper addresses a fundamental challenge for screen reader users: while sighted users can rely on visual conventions to find common website features (log in at top right, contact at bottom), these shortcuts are inaccessible to users with visual i…

EnTable: Rewriting Web Data Sets as Accessible Tables

Steven Gardiner, Anthony Tomasic, John Zimmerman (2015) — ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

This demonstration paper presents EnTable, a crowdsourcing system that transforms visually complex web data presentations into accessible HTML tables. The problem it addresses is fundamental: modern web designers communicate semantic information thro…

Predictive Link Following Plug-In For Web Browsers

Lyle Pierson Stachecki, John Magee (2017) — Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

This demonstration paper presents the first public release of a target-aware pointing assistance plug-in for web browsers that uses Predictive Link Following to help people with motor impairments select links on web pages. Web browsing is challenging…

Farfalla Project: Browser-Based Accessibility Solutions

Andrea Mangiatordi, Harpreet Singh Sareen (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

This paper presents Farfalla, a free and open-source project from the University of Milano Bicocca that provides cloud-based assistive technology through the browser, eliminating the need for locally installed software. The core insight is that tradi…