Literature Reviews

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

• VisionAid: A Multimodal Assistive Application Supporting Safe Road Navigation for Visually Impaired People in Bangladesh

  Asif Mahbub, Nabil Bin Hannan (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  VisionAid is an Android pedestrian-safety app for blind and low vision (BLV) users in Bangladesh, where road crossing is dangerous because traffic is unstructured: lane discipline is rare, drivers run signals, and crosswalks are inconsistent. The aut…

  • blind and low vision
  • pedestrian navigation
  • mobile accessibility
  • computer vision
  • haptic feedback
  • object detection
  • Global South accessibility
  • assistive technology
  • Android

• BlindPilot: A Robotic Local Navigation System that Leads Blind People to a Landmark Object

  Seita Kayukawa, Tatsuya Ishihara, Hironobu Takagi, Shigeo Morishima, Chieko Asakawa (2020) — Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20, Late-Breaking Work)

  Most indoor-navigation research for blind travellers has focused on what the authors call 'global' navigation — getting from a building entrance to a room, gate, or exhibit. The 'last few metres' of the journey, a body-scale interaction with a specif…

  • local navigation
  • landmark object
  • blind navigation
  • indoor navigation
  • assistive robotics
  • visual impairment
  • object detection
  • orientation and mobility
  • shared control
  • LiDAR
  • late-breaking work

• Screen Recognition: Creating Accessibility Metadata for Mobile Applications from Pixels

  Xiaoyi Zhang, Lilian de Greef, Amanda Swearngin, Samuel White, Kyle Murray, Lisa Yu, Qi Shan, Jeffrey Nichols, Jason Wu, Chris Fleizach, Aaron Everitt, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2021) — CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper from Apple introduces Screen Recognition, a system that automatically generates accessibility metadata for mobile apps by analyzing their visual pixels, enabling screen readers to work with apps that lack proper developer-provided accessib…

  • mobile accessibility
  • screen readers
  • machine learning
  • object detection
  • VoiceOver
  • iOS
  • accessibility metadata
  • UI detection
  • computer vision

• AIGuide: Augmented Reality Hand Guidance in a Visual Prosthetic

  Sooyeon Lee, Chien Wen Yuan, So-yeon Yoon, John M. Carroll (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  AIGuide is an iOS smartphone application designed as a "visual prosthetic" to help people with visual impairments locate and physically reach objects in their environment. The app addresses what the authors call the "last meter problem"—while existin…

  • augmented reality
  • visual impairment
  • object detection
  • hand guidance
  • multimodal feedback
  • haptic feedback
  • smartphone accessibility
  • assistive technology

• Machine Generation of Audio Description for Blind and Visually Impaired People

  Virgínia P. Campos, Tiago M. U. de Araújo, Guido L. de Souza Filho, Luiz M. G. Gonçalves (2023) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents an extension to CineAD, a system for automatically generating audio descriptions (AD) for videos. The authors address a critical accessibility gap: most videos, films, and cultural programming lack audio descriptions, leaving blin…

  • audio description
  • blind and visually impaired
  • computer vision
  • machine learning
  • video accessibility
  • text-to-speech
  • object detection
  • automation

• VisPhoto: Photography for People with Visual Impairments via Post-Production of Omnidirectional Camera Imaging

  Naoki Hirabayashi, Masakazu Iwamura, Zheng Cheng, Kazunori Minatani, Koichi Kise (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper introduces VisPhoto, a novel photography system that fundamentally reimagines how people with visual impairments (PVI) take photographs. Rather than helping users aim a conventional camera at a target in real-time (the dominant approach in…

  • visual impairment
  • blindness
  • photography
  • computer vision
  • object detection
  • omnidirectional camera
  • assistive technology
  • self-expression
  • creative accessibility

• A Demonstration of RASSAR: Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality

  Xia Su, Kaiming Cheng, Han Zhang, Jaewook Lee, Wyatt Olson, Jon E. Froehlich (2023) — Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper introduces RASSAR (Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality), a mobile AR application that semi-automatically identifies, localizes, and visualizes indoor accessibility and safety issues using iPhone LiDAR sensors a…

  • augmented reality
  • computer vision
  • indoor accessibility
  • object detection
  • LiDAR
  • home safety
  • accessibility auditing
  • mobile application

• ImageExplorer Deployment: Understanding Text-Based and Touch-Based Image Exploration in the Wild

  Ruolin Xu, Yuxuan Cai, Shuying Hou, Yu-Jung Chang, Anhong Guo (2024) — Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the real-world deployment and evaluation of ImageExplorer, an iOS application that enables blind and low-vision users to explore images through two complementary modalities: text-based sequential exploration and touch-based spatia…

  • image accessibility
  • screen readers
  • touch exploration
  • blind users
  • image description
  • mobile accessibility
  • computer vision
  • object detection

• VisualAid: Enhancing Accessibility for Visually Impaired Users Through AI

  Wajdi Aljedaani, Sijo Rejigeorge, Priya Jha, Srija Yadavalli, Manikanta Kothakota, Marcelo M. Eler, Abdulrahman Habib (2025) — Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This technical note presents VisualAid, an AI-powered Android application designed to help visually impaired users understand and navigate their physical surroundings. The app integrates multiple AI technologies into a single mobile interface: YOLO11…

  • visual impairment
  • object detection
  • image captioning
  • OCR
  • voice interaction
  • mobile accessibility
  • AI-driven accessibility
  • Android

• "Where Can I Park?" Understanding Human Perspectives and Scalably Detecting Disability Parking from Aerial Imagery

  Jared Hwang, Chu Li, Hanbyul Kang, Maryam Hosseini, Jon E. Froehlich (2025) — ASSETS '25: Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This mixed-methods paper addresses the critical gap in understanding and assessing disability parking in the United States. Despite ADA mandates requiring 4-8% of public parking spaces to be accessible, there has been no large-scale investigation of …

  • disability parking
  • computer vision
  • urban planning
  • aerial imagery
  • object detection
  • mobility
  • wayfinding