Literature Reviews

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

• Making Charts Speak: LLM-Based Conversational Chart Question Answering for Blind and Low-Vision Users

  Amit Kumar Das, Mohammad Tarun, Klaus Mueller (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Das, Tarun, and Mueller present GraphWhisper, a conversational system that lets blind and low-vision (BLV) users explore chart images (JPEG, PNG) through natural-language questions, without requiring the chart data to be pre-structured in formats lik…

  • chart accessibility
  • data visualization
  • blind and low vision
  • large language models
  • conversational interface
  • prompt engineering
  • visualization literacy

• Analyzing Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Users' Behavior, Usage, and Interaction with a Personal Assistant Device that Understands Sign-Language Input

  Abraham Glasser, Matthew Watkins, Kira Hart, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth (2022) — Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper investigates how Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) ASL signers would actually use a personal assistant device (such as an Amazon Echo Show or Google Home) if it could understand American Sign Language commands. The authors position t…

  • sign language
  • american sign language
  • deaf and hard of hearing
  • personal assistants
  • voice assistants
  • smart speaker
  • conversational interface
  • sign language recognition
  • accessibility research
  • wizard of oz

• WearWrite: Crowd-Assisted Writing from Smartwatches

  Michael Nebeling, Alexandra To, Anhong Guo, Adrian A. de Freitas, Jaime Teevan, Steven P. Dow, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2016) — Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2016)

  WearWrite is a system that enables users to write documents from their smartwatches by leveraging crowd workers to translate ideas into text. The system addresses the fundamental limitation that smartwatches have severely constrained input/output — t…

  • crowdsourcing
  • wearable technology
  • human computation
  • collaborative writing
  • mobile accessibility
  • conversational interface

• Answering Visual Questions with Conversational Crowd Assistants

  Walter S. Lasecki, Phyo Thiha, Yu Zhong, Erin Brady, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013)

  This paper introduces Chorus:View, a system that enables blind users to get visual questions answered through continuous conversational interaction with multiple crowd workers viewing a live video stream from the user's mobile device. The system addr…

  • blind and low vision
  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • assistive technology
  • visual assistance
  • VizWiz
  • conversational interface
  • mobile accessibility

• WearMail: On-the-Go Access to Information in Your Email with a Privacy-Preserving Human Computation Workflow

  Saiganesh Swaminathan, Raymond Fok, Fanglin Chen, Ting-Hao (Kenneth) Huang, Irene Lin, Rohan Jadvani, Walter S. Lasecki, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2017) — Proceedings of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2017)

  WearMail is a conversational system that extracts specific information from a user's email via voice queries on wearable devices (such as smartwatches), using a novel privacy-preserving human computation workflow. The system addresses the challenge t…

  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • privacy
  • wearable technology
  • information extraction
  • mobile accessibility
  • conversational interface

• "This really lets us see the entire world:" Designing a conversational telepresence robot for homebound older adults

  Yaxin Hu, Laura Stegner, Yasmine Kotturi, Caroline Zhang, Yi-Hao Peng, Faria Huq, Yuhang Zhao, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Bilge Mutlu (2024) — Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '24)

  This paper investigates how conversational telepresence robots can help homebound older adults interact with the external world. Homebound status — defined as rarely or never leaving home due to illness, injury, or environmental constraints — affects…

  • telepresence robots
  • older adults
  • homebound
  • social isolation
  • participatory design
  • conversational interface
  • assistive technology
  • remote exploration
  • aging

• Jido: A Conversational Tactile Map for Blind People

  Luis Cavazos Quero, Jorge Iranzo Bartolomé, Dongmyeong Lee, Yerin Lee, Sangwon Lee, Jundong Cho (2019) — Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This demonstration paper presents Jido, a system that combines a touch-sensitive tactile map with a voice-based conversational agent to help blind people understand and navigate indoor environments. The tactile map is constructed from laser-cut acryl…

  • blindness
  • tactile maps
  • voice interaction
  • indoor navigation
  • conversational interface
  • assistive technology
  • orientation and mobility