Literature Reviews

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

• Collaborative Web Accessibility Improvement: Challenges and Possibilities

  Hironobu Takagi, Shinya Kawanaka, Masatomo Kobayashi, Daisuke Sato, Chieko Asakawa (2009) — Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper reports on the Social Accessibility Project, an experimental service developed by IBM Research in Tokyo that uses collaborative metadata authoring to improve web accessibility. The system works through a three-part architecture: end users …

  • web accessibility
  • collaborative accessibility
  • crowdsourcing
  • metadata
  • screen readers
  • social computing
  • web transcoding
  • alternative text

• Exploratory Analysis of Collaborative Web Accessibility Improvement

  Daisuke Sato, Hironobu Takagi, Masatomo Kobayashi, Shinya Kawanaka, Chieko Asakawa (2010) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents a detailed analysis of the Social Accessibility Project, an experimental crowdsourced service from IBM Research-Tokyo that enables volunteers to fix web accessibility problems without requiring site owners to modify their pages. L…

  • crowdsourcing
  • web accessibility
  • social computing
  • metadata
  • screen readers
  • alternative text
  • collaborative accessibility
  • blind users
  • transcoding

• What's in an ALT Tag? Exploring Caption Content Priorities through Collaborative Captioning

  Annika Muehlbradt, Shaun K. Kane (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper investigates what makes a good image caption through a novel collaborative captioning methodology. Six pairs of blind and sighted partners—including married couples, friends, and roommates—worked together to create and refine captions for …

  • image descriptions
  • alt text
  • collaborative accessibility
  • cross-ability collaboration
  • screen readers
  • social media accessibility

• The Invisible Work of Accessibility: How Blind Employees Manage Accessibility in Mixed-Ability Workplaces

  Stacy M. Branham, Shaun K. Kane (2015) — ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This qualitative field study examines how blind employees navigate accessibility in shared office environments where they work alongside sighted colleagues. The researchers conducted a multi-session study with five blind office workers (ages 25-54) a…

  • blindness
  • workplace accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • screen readers
  • employment
  • disability rights
  • invisible work
  • collaborative accessibility
  • mixed-ability workplaces
  • qualitative research

• Towards One World Web with HearSay3

  Yevgen Borodin, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amanda Stent, I. V. Ramakrishnan (2008) — Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper presents HearSay 3, a self-voicing non-visual web browser developed at Stony Brook University and the University of Washington, designed to address accessibility challenges introduced by Web 2.0. Building on two previous versions — t…

  • screen readers
  • non-visual web browser
  • blind users
  • collaborative accessibility
  • multilingual accessibility
  • dynamic content
  • Web 2.0
  • crowdsourcing
  • text-to-speech

• Social accessibility: the challenge of improving web accessibility through collaboration

  Daisuke Sato, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Social Accessibility, a collaborative project from IBM Research Tokyo that enlists volunteers to fix web accessibility problems reported by visually impaired users. The system works through a three-step process: blind users encoun…

  • crowdsourcing
  • screen readers
  • alternative text
  • visual impairment
  • social computing
  • collaborative accessibility
  • external metadata

• Alipi: Tools for a Re-Narration Web

  T. B. Dinesh, Venkatesh Choppella (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This companion demo paper to the full Alipi framework paper presents the concrete open-source toolset that implements the re-narration web concept. The authors frame the accessibility challenge around the "next billion" internet users — people who ma…

  • social accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • localization
  • multilingual accessibility
  • collaborative accessibility
  • mobile accessibility
  • digital inclusion

• Alipi: A Framework for Re-Narrating Web Pages

  T. B. Dinesh, S. Uskudarli, Subramanya Sastry, Deepti Aggarwal, Venkatesh Choppella (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces Alipi, a distributed and participatory framework for re-narrating web pages to make them more accessible to diverse audiences. The name "alipi" means "print illiterate" in Kannada and other Indian subcontinent languages, reflect…

  • social accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • crowdsourcing
  • localization
  • multilingual accessibility
  • collaborative accessibility
  • DOM manipulation

• Accessmonkey: A Collaborative Scripting Framework for Web Users and Developers

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Richard E. Ladner (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces Accessmonkey, a JavaScript-based scripting framework that enables web users, developers, and researchers to collaboratively improve web accessibility through client-side page modifications. Built as an extension of the Greasemon…

  • web accessibility
  • web transcoding
  • browser extensions
  • JavaScript
  • collaborative accessibility
  • alternative text
  • screen readers
  • blind users
  • developer tools
  • user empowerment