Literature Reviews

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

• Improving Public Transit Accessibility for Blind Riders: A Train Station Navigation Assistant

  Markus Guentert (2011) — The Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This short paper presents a prototype iPhone application designed to help blind people navigate inside train stations — an environment where GPS is unavailable and orientation is particularly challenging. The author's motivation comes from interviews…

  • blindness
  • indoor navigation
  • public transit
  • iPhone
  • wayfinding
  • cognitive map
  • accessibility
  • commodity hardware
  • screen reader

• PassChords: Secure Multi-Touch Authentication for Blind People

  Shiri Azenkot, Kyle Rector, Richard Ladner, Jacob Wobbrock (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper presents PassChords, a non-visual multi-touch authentication method for blind mobile device users that is resistant to both aural and visual eavesdropping. The research begins with interviews of 13 blind smartphone users (average age 51, r…

  • accessible authentication
  • blind users
  • mobile security
  • touch screen
  • VoiceOver
  • eavesdropping
  • privacy
  • screen reader
  • iPhone
  • multi-touch

• Helping Visually Impaired Users Properly Aim a Camera

  Marynel Vázquez, Aaron Steinfeld (2012) — Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper evaluates three interaction modes for helping visually impaired users aim a camera to achieve good photo composition: speech-based feedback (spoken directional words like "up", "down", "left", "right" with pitch indicating proximity), tone…

  • visual impairment
  • blind users
  • low vision
  • photography
  • camera aiming
  • computer vision
  • audio feedback
  • transit accessibility
  • saliency maps
  • iPhone
  • assistive technology

• Blind Photographers and VizSnap: A Long-Term Study

  Dustin Adams, Sri Kurniawan, Cynthia Herrera, Veronica Kang, Natalie Friedman (2016) — Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper reports on a two-month longitudinal study with 13 blind participants (ages 18-65, nine totally blind and two with some light perception, seven adventitiously and six congenitally blind) using VizSnap, a free iPhone app designed to help bli…

  • blindness
  • photography
  • mobile accessibility
  • social media
  • iPhone
  • VoiceOver
  • user research
  • image accessibility