Literature Reviews

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

• AR Haptic-Audio Conversion for Non-Visual Product Understanding in Smartphone AR

  Satomi Tokida, Ayaka Tsutsui, Norimasa Kobori, Matthew Gillingham, Bektur Ryskeldiev (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Tokida and colleagues (Mercari R4D, University of Tokyo, University of Tsukuba) tackle a specific gap in e-commerce accessibility: the AR 'view-in-room' features now common in online marketplaces (IKEA Place, Amazon AR View) assume sighted interactio…

  • blind and low vision
  • augmented reality
  • mobile AR
  • haptics
  • vibrotactile
  • e-commerce accessibility
  • multimodal interaction
  • non-visual interaction

• TacChat: Exploring User Generation and Accessible Sharing via Tactile Graphics for the Blind and Visually Impaired

  Yuewen Zhang, Danning Li, Kexin Zhou, Pu Jiang, Jingyang Lyu, Kotaro Hara, Baoshui Chen, Shuai Gao, Yang Jiao (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Zhang and colleagues (Tsinghua University, Singapore Management University, and Beijing School for the Blind) flip the usual framing of tactile-graphics research: rather than asking how blind and low-vision (BLV) people can better consume tactile ima…

  • tactile graphics
  • refreshable tactile display
  • blind and low vision
  • accessible authoring
  • social media accessibility
  • technology probe
  • accessibility research
  • self-expression
  • non-visual interaction

• Three Modalities, Two Design Probes, One Prototype, and No Vision: Experience-Based Co-Design of a Multi-modal 3D Data Visualization Tool

  Sanchita S. Kamath, Aziz N. Zeidieh, Venkatesh Potluri, Sile O'Modhrain, Kenneth Perry, JooYoung Seo (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Kamath et al. report an Experience-Based Co-Design (EBCD) process in which five blind or low-vision (BLV) researchers and one sighted collaborator built a web-native, multimodal prototype for exploring 3D surface plots - a class of visualisation cent…

  • blind and low vision
  • data visualization
  • 3D visualization
  • sonification
  • spatial audio
  • tactile graphics
  • experience-based co-design
  • multimodal interaction
  • STEM accessibility
  • non-visual interaction
  • participatory design
  • co-design
  • web accessibility

• Presenting Information in Sound

  Sara Bly (1982) — Proceedings of the 1982 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '82)

  Sara Bly's 1982 CHI paper, written at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is one of the earliest systematic investigations of using computer-generated sound — rather than graphics — to present multivariate data to human analysts. Bly opens by arg…

  • sonification
  • auditory display
  • data visualization
  • multivariate data
  • non-visual interaction
  • historical
  • computer music
  • accessible data

• User Interface of a Nonvisual Table Navigation Method

  Chieko Asakawa, Takashi Itoh (1999) — CHI '99 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This two-page CHI '99 late-breaking-results extended abstract addresses a problem that was central to the early accessible web: HTML tables were everywhere — used both for tabular data and, at the time, as a layout device — but talking web browsers r…

  • web accessibility
  • screen readers
  • voice browser
  • table accessibility
  • blindness and low vision
  • non-visual interaction
  • assistive technology
  • text-to-speech

• Accessible Photo Album: Enhancing the Photo Sharing Experience for People with Visual Impairment

  Susumu Harada, Daisuke Sato, Dustin W. Adams, Sri Kurniawan, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2013) — Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '13)

  This paper investigates how blind and partially sighted people can be supported not only in capturing photographs but in organising, recalling, and sharing them afterwards — a step that the authors argue has been largely neglected in prior blind-phot…

  • blindness and low vision
  • mobile accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • photography
  • audiophotography
  • screen readers
  • non-visual interaction
  • eyes-free interaction
  • social accessibility
  • multimedia accessibility

• Sasayaki: Augmented Voice Web Browsing Experience

  Daisuke Sato, Shaojian Zhu, Masatomo Kobayashi, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2011) — Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '11)

  This paper introduces Sasayaki (Japanese for 'whisper'), a prototype that augments the standard screen-reader voice with a second, physically separated synthesised voice that whispers contextually relevant hints — for example 'entering main content',…

  • screen readers
  • auditory interface
  • voice browser
  • web accessibility
  • blindness and low vision
  • non-visual interaction
  • assistive technology
  • multimodal
  • speech technology

• On the Audio Representation of Radial Direction

  Susumu Harada, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2011) — Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '11)

  This paper proposes a new primitive for auditory displays — radial direction — and evaluates a concrete mapping of vowel-like sounds to eight cardinal and ordinal directions. The authors observe that almost all prior sonification work has mapped data…

  • sonification
  • auditory display
  • auditory interface
  • non-visual interaction
  • eyes-free interaction
  • navigation
  • blindness and low vision
  • assistive technology
  • human-computer interaction

• Improving Accessibility to Statistical Graphs: The iGraph-Lite System

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Gitte Lindgaard, Louis Boucher, Antoine Chretien, Martin Lachance (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada presents iGraph-Lite, a system that makes statistical graphs accessible to blind and visually impaired people by generating natural language descriptions and providing an interactive navigatio…

  • data visualization accessibility
  • graph accessibility
  • natural language generation
  • screen readers
  • blindness
  • statistics
  • non-visual interaction
  • information accessibility

• Dual Educational Electronic Textbooks: The Starlight Platform

  Dimitris Grammenos, Anthony Savidis, Yannis Georgalis, Themistoklis Bourdenas, Constantine Stephanidis (2007) — Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas (FORTH) in Crete, Greece presents Starlight, a software platform for creating and reading multimodal interactive electronic textbooks that provide a Dual User Interface — an interface …

  • accessible publishing
  • electronic textbook
  • blind students
  • inclusive education
  • dual user interface
  • braille display
  • text-to-speech
  • non-visual interaction
  • multimodal interaction
  • earcons
  • educational technology