Literature Reviews

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

• 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

• How Accessible is the Process of Web Interface Design?

  Kirk Norman, Yevgeniy Arber, Ravi Kuber (2013) — Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper investigates the accessibility challenges faced by blind web interface developers through interviews with six legally blind participants (all male, aged 29-48) who had experience building websites and online applications. Five used J…

  • blind developers
  • web development
  • screen readers
  • programming accessibility
  • JAWS
  • collaborative design
  • HTML
  • CSS
  • JavaScript
  • workplace accessibility
  • developer tools

• Mining Web Interactions to Automatically Create Mash-Ups

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Ryan S. Kaminsky, Jeffrey Nichols (2009) — Proceedings of the 22nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2009)

  This paper introduces TX2, a Firefox browser extension that automatically creates meta-search mash-ups by mining the web interactions of multiple users to discover relationships between query forms on different websites. The deep web — information ac…

  • web accessibility
  • web development
  • information retrieval
  • end-user programming
  • personalization
  • user interface design

• Building Keyboard Accessible Drag and Drop

  Rucha Somani, Jiahang Xin, Bijay Bhaskar Deo, Yun Huang (2014) — Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents an API that enables web developers to create keyboard-accessible drag and drop (DnD) components for web applications, particularly e-learning systems. Drag and drop interactions are widely used in educational websites for cla…

  • keyboard accessibility
  • drag and drop
  • web accessibility
  • e-learning
  • screen readers
  • web development
  • ARIA

• Accessible Web Development: Opportunities to Improve the Education and Practice of web Development with a Screen Reader

  Claire Ferrari, Amy Hurst (2021) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper investigates accessibility barriers faced by blind web developers in both educational and professional contexts. The researchers employed a Comprehensive Literature Review (CLR) methodology—synthesizing academic literature, blog posts by b…

  • blind programmers
  • screen readers
  • web development
  • CSS
  • accessible education
  • IDE accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • inclusive curriculum
  • developer tools

• An accessible method of hiding HTML content

  Paul Ryan Bohman, Shane Anderson (2004) — Proceedings of the 2004 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from WebAIM researchers at Utah State University presents a CSS technique for visually hiding HTML content while keeping it accessible to screen readers — an early formalization of what became the widely adopted "sr-only" or "visually-hidd…

  • CSS
  • screen readers
  • visually hidden text
  • web development
  • skip navigation
  • form accessibility
  • image replacement

• Accessibility for Simple to Moderate-Complexity DHTML Web Sites

  Cynthia C. Shelly, George Young (2007) — Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This detailed technical paper from Microsoft provides practical design and coding techniques for making Dynamic HTML and AJAX applications accessible using the browser and assistive technology capabilities available in 2007 — deliberately without rel…

  • web accessibility
  • DHTML
  • AJAX
  • JavaScript
  • keyboard accessibility
  • screen readers
  • semantic HTML
  • web development
  • assistive technology
  • dynamic content

• An Educational Tool for Generating Inaccessible Page Examples Based on WCAG 2.0 Failures

  Atheer S. Al-Khalifa, Hend S. Al-Khalifa (2011) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents the Accessibility Example Generator (AEG), an online educational tool from King Saud University and King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, designed to help instructors create modular examples of inaccessib…

  • accessibility education
  • WCAG compliance
  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility tools
  • web development

• Guidelines, Icons and Marketable Skills: An Accessibility Evaluation of 100 Web Development Company Homepages

  Teresa D. Gilbertson, Colin H. C. Machin (2012) — Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This study examined whether web development companies that market accessibility as a skill actually practice what they preach, by evaluating the homepages of 100 UK web development companies selected from Google searches across four geographic region…

  • web accessibility
  • WCAG compliance
  • developer awareness
  • conformance testing
  • accessibility evaluation
  • web development
  • accessibility policy

• How to Develop Accessible Web Interfaces for Deaf People?

  Gênesis Medeiros do Carmo, Débora Maria Barroso Paiva, Maria Istela Cagnin (2019) — Proceedings of the 18th Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems (IHC)

  This paper presents a systematic mapping study examining how web interfaces are being designed and implemented for deaf and hard of hearing users. The authors searched six databases and 17 conferences from 2005-2018, screening 469 publications to sel…

  • deaf accessibility
  • hard of hearing
  • web accessibility
  • systematic mapping
  • sign language
  • captioning
  • WCAG
  • web development