Literature Reviews

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

• Do-It-Yourself AAC: Co-Designing User-Programmable AI Communication Tools with People with Aphasia

  Jong Ho Lee, Stephanie Valencia (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Lee and Valencia explore how people with aphasia (PWA) can become designers of their own AI-powered augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools rather than users of rigid, pre-built systems. The authors note that aphasia, a language disord…

  • aphasia
  • AAC
  • augmentative and alternative communication
  • end-user programming
  • generative AI
  • large language models
  • participatory design
  • co-design
  • visual programming
  • tangible interaction
  • cognitive accessibility
  • speech and language
  • stroke
  • assistive technology
  • personalization

• Designing a Scripting Language to Help the Blind Program Visually

  Kenneth G. Franqueiro, Robert M. Siegfried (2006) — Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper addresses the significant barrier that GUI-based programming environments pose for blind programmers. While programming was historically one of the more accessible professions for blind individuals — with the American Federation for the Bl…

  • blind programmers
  • visual programming
  • graphical user interfaces
  • scripting languages
  • IDE accessibility
  • Visual Basic

• Pushing the Raman principle

  Clayton Lewis (2013) — Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper explores the implications of what the author calls the "Raman Principle," attributed to T.V. Raman: "The way to think about the visual system is as a way to answer queries against a spatial database. If you have an alternate way to ask the…

  • visual programming
  • blindness
  • non-visual interaction
  • screen readers
  • programming accessibility
  • inclusive design