The literature-review database. Every paper Bob has reviewed (he has read many more), with a short summary, key findings, and tags. Browse, filter, search.
Bob Dodd · 2022 · Research Paper
An exploration of how the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) embeds accessibility into its organizational DNA, from procurement and development processes to training and culture. Based on direct experience working within the organization.
organizational practices · born accessible · CNIB · culture
Chiara Magosso, Dragan Ahmetovic, Tiziana Armano, Cristian Bernareggi, Sandro Coriasco, Adriano Sofia, Luisa Testa, Anna Capietto · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2022)
This short paper presents a user study with 19 Italian university students who have Developmental Learning Disorders (DLD), examining whether text-to-speech (TTS) access to mathematical formulae improves their ability to memorize math syntax and their subjective experience…
developmental learning disorders · text-to-speech · mathematics accessibility · dyscalculia · dyslexia
Jorge Sassaki Resende Silva, André Pimenta Freire, Paula Christina Figueira Cardoso · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2022)
This paper addresses a fundamental problem for blind screen reader users: what happens when web documents lack proper heading markup, eliminating one of the primary navigation strategies available to them. The researchers designed and evaluated a tool that uses Natural Language…
screen readers · headings · natural language processing · text segmentation · blind users
Mohammad Gulam Lorgat, Hugo Paredes, Tânia Rocha · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2022)
This extended abstract proposes a gamification-based approach for teaching web accessibility to undergraduate Computer Science and Software Engineering students as part of a web design course. The authors identify a gap in accessibility education: while previous approaches have…
gamification · accessibility education · computer science education · WCAG · pedagogy
Hwayeon Joh, Yun Jung Lee, Uran Oh · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2022)
This study investigates how screen reader users find and select targets on a smartphone touchscreen without visual cues, examining the effects of screen size, target size, and the ratio between them. Twelve participants with visual impairments (three totally blind, three with…
touchscreen · screen readers · target acquisition · mobile accessibility · visual impairment
Ovidiu-Andrei Schipor, Laura-Bianca Bilius, Radu-Daniel Vatavu · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper introduces WearSkill, a web-based application designed to provide personalized and interchangeable input for wearable computing, with a specific focus on users with motor impairments. The system addresses a fundamental challenge in wearable accessibility: most…
wearable technology · motor impairments · personalization · input modalities · gesture input
Alexander Hambley, Yeliz Yesilada, Markel Vigo, Simon Harper · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper critically examines the Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM), the W3C's standard five-step process for evaluating website conformance to WCAG. The authors identify several methodological weaknesses in WCAG-EM and propose a parallel…
accessibility evaluation · WCAG-EM · sampling methodology · automated testing · web crawling
Tlamelo Makati · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This extended abstract explores how machine learning techniques, particularly reinforcement learning, can be adapted to improve web navigation accessibility in alignment with WCAG Guideline 2.4 (Navigable). The author observes that ML techniques have already been applied to…
machine learning · web accessibility · reinforcement learning · web navigation · query optimization
Idil Ece Trabzon, Furkan Yagiz, Elmas Eda Karadavut, Mahmoud Elhewahey, Sukru Eraslan, Yeliz Yesilada, Simon Harper · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper presents EXTRA, an automated framework for experiential transcoding of web pages — a technique that restructures web content based on how sighted users actually interact with pages, rather than relying solely on source code analysis. The core problem the authors…
screen readers · web transcoding · eye tracking · web page segmentation · content reordering
Sidas Saulynas, Mei-Lian Vader, Apoorva Bendigeri, Tristan King, Anirudh Nagraj, Ravi Kuber · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This qualitative study investigates the running experiences of 13 legally blind individuals in the United States, exploring where and how they run, what assistance they use, the challenges they face, and how technology could better support them. Participants ranged from casual…
blindness · visual impairment · physical activity · assistive technology · wearable technology
Hirak Ray, Ravi Kuber, Adam J. Aviv · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This qualitative study examines how 25 older adults (aged 60-89) in the United States adapted to online conferencing tools during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a particular focus on usability challenges, privacy and security concerns, and the trade-offs made between the two. The…
older adults · aging · technology adoption · privacy · usability
Foad Hamidi, Zulekha Karachiwalla · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This qualitative study investigates the accessibility barriers faced by refugees with disabilities in the United States, drawing on interviews with six experts who serve refugee populations in Baltimore, Maryland. The research was conducted during the first year of the COVID-19…
refugees · disability · mental health · cultural barriers · language access
Wajdi Aljedaani, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Stephanie Ludi, Ali Ouni, Ilyes Jenhani · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper addresses a significant gap in software engineering research: the automated identification of accessibility-related bug reports in open-source projects. While bug tracking systems like Bugzilla and Monorail accumulate vast numbers of reports, manually sifting through…
accessibility bug reports · machine learning · open source · bug classification · automated testing
Adam Chaboryk · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This extended abstract introduces Sa11y, an open-source, in-page accessibility checker specifically designed for content authors rather than developers. Created at Ryerson University (now Toronto Metropolitan University) to manage accessibility across several hundred website…
automated testing · accessibility tools · content management · open source · quality assurance
Ovidiu-Andrei Schipor, Laura-Bianca Bilius, Ovidiu-Ciprian Ungurean, Alexandru-Ionut Siean, Alexandru-Tudor Andrei, Radu-Daniel Vatavu · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This extended abstract presents WearSkill, a web-based middleware application that enables people with upper-body motor impairments to control connected smart home devices through personalised wearable interactions. The system addresses a significant gap: most wearable devices…
wearable technology · motor impairment · personalization · smart home · gesture input
William Payne · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This doctoral consortium paper outlines a three-phase dissertation addressing the accessibility barriers that blind and visually impaired (BVI) musicians face when using music creation technologies. Music software has democratized composition, production, and songwriting for…
visual impairment · blindness · music technology · braille music · co-design
Kyungjun Lee, Jonggi Hong, Ebrima Jarjue, Ernest Essuah Mensah, Hernisa Kacorri · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper from the University of Maryland explores using smart glasses as an observational tool in remote usability studies with blind participants. The COVID-19 pandemic forced accessibility researchers to shift from in-person to remote methods, but standard remote setups —…
blindness and low vision · smart glasses · remote usability testing · user research · assistive technology
Rachana Sreedhar, Nicole Tan, Jingyue Zhang, Kim Jin, Spencer Gregson, Eli Moreta-Feliz, Niveditha Samudrala, Shrenik Sadalgi · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper from the Wayfair Next team presents AIDE (Automatic Image Description Engine), a multi-modal system that automatically generates alt-text for user-submitted review photos on e-commerce sites. While product images on retail sites sometimes have alt-text, customer…
alternative text · image description · online shopping · blindness and low vision · computer vision
Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This short paper applies the ADKAR change management model — Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, and Reinforcement — to understand what interventions are needed to improve web accessibility at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) in Switzerland. The author argues that…
organizational accessibility · change management · higher education · web accessibility · accessibility policy
Juliette Regimbal, Jeffrey R. Blum, Jeremy R. Cooperstock · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This short paper from McGill University introduces IMAGE (Internet Multimodal Access to Graphical Exploration), an open-source framework for converting web graphics into accessible multimodal outputs including audio, haptic, and text representations for blind and low vision…
multimodal · web graphics · image accessibility · haptic feedback · sonification
Andy Coverdale, Sarah Lewthwaite, Sarah Horton · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This short paper reports on qualitative research with 30 expert accessibility educators from academia and the workplace, drawn from a larger study called "Teaching Accessibility in the Digital Skill Set" (2019-2024). Using expert panel method — a participatory approach that…
accessibility education · pedagogy · higher education · workplace training · capacity building
Brett L. Fiedler, Taliesin L. Smith, Jesse Greenberg, Emily B. Moore · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper investigates how educators perceive a Web Speech API-based auditory description feature called Voicing, implemented in two PhET Interactive Simulations (John Travoltage and Gravity Force Lab: Basics) used globally for science education. Unlike traditional screen…
auditory description · web speech · science education · interactive simulations · universal design
Candace Williams, Lilian de Greef, Ed Harris, Leah Findlater, Amy Pavel, Cynthia Bennett · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This paper investigates the state of alternative text for figures in computing research publications, an understudied context where figures often convey dense, complex visual information quite different from social media or news imagery. The researchers conducted two…
alternative text · scientific figures · data visualization · screen readers · document accessibility
Xiaozhu Hu, Jiting Wang, Weiwei Gao, Yongquan Hu · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)
This paper presents FootUI, a vision-based interaction technique that enables people with upper body motor impairments but sound lower limbs to use smartphones through foot gestures while reclining on a bed. The system uses the phone's front-facing camera, mounted on a phone…
motor accessibility · foot-based interaction · gesture recognition · smartphone accessibility · computer vision
Luz Rello · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)
This invited talk paper presents the decade-long research and entrepreneurial journey behind Dytective, a platform that combines machine learning and gamified exercises to detect risk of dyslexia and provide personalized interventions. Dyslexia affects up to 10% of the global…
dyslexia · machine learning · screening · serious games · social entrepreneurship