Literature Reviews

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

• 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

• Rendering Tables in Audio: The Interaction of Structure and Reading Styles

  Yeliz Yesilada, Robert Stevens, Carole Goble, Shazad Hussein (2004) — Proceedings of the 6th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets 04)

  This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of why HTML tables are problematic for screen reader users and proposes two complementary approaches for non-visual table access. The authors from the University of Manchester first characterize what makes…

  • table accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • screen reader
  • web accessibility
  • table linearization
  • non-visual interaction
  • data table
  • audio interaction
  • web navigation

• Navigation of HTML Tables, Frames, and XML Fragments

  Enrico Pontelli, Douglas Gillan, Weiqiang Xiong, Elham Saad, Gopal Gupta, Arthur I. Karshmer (2002) — Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper provides a progress report on a multi-institution project developing technology to support non-visual navigation of complex HTML tables, frames, and XML structures. The authors identify tables, frames, and forms as the most difficult areas…

  • table accessibility
  • web accessibility
  • screen readers
  • non-visual navigation
  • semantic navigation
  • HTML frames
  • XML accessibility
  • domain specific language

• Planning, Reasoning, and Agents for Non-Visual Navigation of Tables and Frames

  Enrico Pontelli, Tran Cao Son (2002) — Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper from New Mexico State University extends previous work on a Domain Specific Language (DSL) for non-visual table navigation by reinterpreting it within the framework of formal action theory. The core problem addressed is that HTML tables an…

  • table accessibility
  • screen readers
  • non-visual navigation
  • semantic navigation
  • artificial intelligence
  • domain specific language
  • HTML tables

• A Domain Specific Language Framework for Non-Visual Browsing of Complex HTML Structures

  E. Pontelli, W. Xiong, G. Gupta, A. I. Karshmer (2000) — Proceedings of the Fourth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '00)

  This paper from New Mexico State University, University of Texas at Dallas, and University of South Florida presents a framework for navigating complex HTML structures — specifically tables, frames, and forms — that are particularly challenging for s…

  • table accessibility
  • non-visual browsing
  • screen readers
  • domain specific language
  • HTML tables
  • semantic structure
  • web accessibility
  • blind users
  • conceptual graphs

• An Interactive Method for Accessing Tables in HTML

  Toshiya Oogane, Chieko Asakawa (1998) — Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper from IBM Japan proposes a method for converting HTML tables into non-visual, navigable representations for screen reader users. At the time, Screen Reader/2 (the Japanese version of OS/2's screen reader) could read displayed text informati…

  • web accessibility
  • screen reader
  • HTML tables
  • table accessibility
  • blind and low vision
  • non-visual interaction
  • web development