Literature Reviews

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

• WebAnywhere: Experiences with a New Delivery Model for Access Technology

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Wendy Chisholm, Richard E. Ladner (2010) — Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This follow-up paper describes the evolution of WebAnywhere two years after its initial release, documenting how it expanded from a web-based screen reader for blind users into a broader platform for delivering access technology. Released publicly in…

  • screen readers
  • blindness
  • low vision
  • web-based assistive technology
  • text-to-speech
  • speech recognition
  • open source
  • digital equity
  • internationalization
  • cloud computing
  • AT delivery

• WebAnywhere: A Screen Reading Interface for the Web on Any Computer

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Craig M. Prince, Sangyun Hahn, Richard E. Ladner (2008) — Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper introduces WebAnywhere, a free web-based screen reader from the University of Washington that enables blind users to access the web from any computer with a standard browser and sound capability, without installing any software. The …

  • screen readers
  • blindness
  • web-based assistive technology
  • text-to-speech
  • digital equity
  • cloud computing
  • JavaScript
  • proxy server
  • portable accessibility

• Life-long learning on the inclusive web

  Jutta Treviranus (2016) — Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  In this keynote-style paper, Jutta Treviranus—director of the Inclusive Design Research Centre at OCAD University—argues that formal education systems are fundamentally failing to enable all students to reach their diverse potential, and that this fa…

  • inclusive design
  • inclusive education
  • accessibility policy
  • complex adaptive systems
  • open educational resources
  • personalization
  • digital equity
  • lifelong learning

• "I Used To Carry A Wallet, Now I Just Need To Carry My Phone": Understanding Current Banking Practices and Challenges Among Older Adults in China

  Xiaofu Jin, Mingming Fan (2022) — Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper investigates how older adults in China navigate the rapidly shifting landscape from physical to digital banking, examining their practices, motivations for learning, and the challenges they encounter. China provides a particularly compelli…

  • older adults
  • digital banking
  • mobile accessibility
  • digital equity
  • financial accessibility
  • aging
  • technology adoption
  • electronic payment

• AT@Work: Intelligent Assistive Technologies for Enabling Workplace Inclusion

  Mario Heinz-Jakobs, Sinem Görmez, Hailey L Johnson, Jens Gerken, Max Pascher, Giulia Barbareschi, Saminda Sundeepa Balasuriya, Laurianne Sitbon, Carsten Röcker (2025) — ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This workshop paper examines the role of digital assistive technologies (ATs) in advancing vocational inclusion for people with disabilities. Despite increasing policy efforts such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabi…

  • assistive technology
  • workplace inclusion
  • vocational rehabilitation
  • collaborative robots
  • cognitive disability
  • disability divide
  • digital equity
  • human-robot interaction
  • worker assistance systems