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• Freedom to Roam: A Study of Mobile Device Adoption and Accessibility for People with Visual and Motor Disabilities

  Shaun K. Kane, Chandrika Jayant, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Richard E. Ladner · 2009 · Proceedings of the 11th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '09)

  This paper presents a two-method qualitative study examining how people with visual and motor disabilities select, adapt, and use mobile devices in their daily lives. The researchers interviewed 20 participants (ages 20-66) with visual disabilities (blindness, low vision) and…

  mobile accessibility · visual impairment · motor impairment · blindness · low vision

• WebAnywhere: A Screen Reading Interface for the Web on Any Computer

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Craig M. Prince, Sangyun Hahn, Richard E. Ladner · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This short paper introduces WebAnywhere, a free web-based screen reader from the University of Washington that enables blind users to access the web from any computer with a standard browser and sound capability, without installing any software. The system addresses a critical…

  screen readers · blindness · web-based assistive technology · text-to-speech · digital equity

• PowerUp: An Accessible Virtual World

  Shari Trewin, Vicki L. Hanson, Mark R. Laff, Anna Cavender · 2008 · Proceedings of the 10th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '08)

  This paper describes the design and validation of accessibility features for PowerUp, an IBM-developed multiplayer 3D virtual world educational game aimed at middle school students. The researchers were tasked with making the game usable by players with visual, hearing,…

  game accessibility · virtual reality · visual impairment · blindness · cognitive accessibility

• Experimental Evaluation of Usability and Accessibility of Heading Elements

  Takayuki Watanabe · 2007 · Proceedings of the 2007 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This study by Takayuki Watanabe of Tokyo Woman's Christian University provides empirical evidence for something the accessibility community has long advocated: that proper semantic markup of heading elements (h1-h6) significantly improves both usability and accessibility. The…

  semantic HTML · heading elements · screen readers · usability testing · blindness

• Observing Sara: A Case Study of a Blind Person's Interactions with Technology

  Kristen Shinohara, Josh Tenenberg · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the University of Washington, Tacoma presents a rich, in-depth case study of Sara, a congenitally blind college student, observed and interviewed across multiple sessions as she interacts with a wide range of technologies in her home. The study uses Blythe, Monk…

  blindness · assistive technology · case study · technology biographies · workarounds

• Finger Dance: A Sound Game for Blind People

  Daniel Miller, Aaron Parecki, Sarah A. Douglas · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from the University of Oregon presents Finger Dance, an original audio-based rhythm-action game designed specifically for visually impaired players. The authors take a different approach from the usual sensory substitution strategy (replacing visual elements with…

  audio game · game accessibility · blindness · rhythm-action game · sensory substitution

• Improving Accessibility to Statistical Graphs: The iGraph-Lite System

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Gitte Lindgaard, Louis Boucher, Antoine Chretien, Martin Lachance · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada presents iGraph-Lite, a system that makes statistical graphs accessible to blind and visually impaired people by generating natural language descriptions and providing an interactive navigation tool for exploring graph…

  data visualization accessibility · graph accessibility · natural language generation · screen readers · blindness

• Accessible spaces: navigating through a marked environment with a camera phone

  Kee-Yip Chan, Roberto Manduchi, James Coughlan · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  This short Assets '07 demonstration paper from UC Santa Cruz and the Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute describes a camera-phone-based wayfinding system for blind travellers. The core idea is to deploy small, cheap, pie-shaped colour markers in an environment — on walls,…

  wayfinding · navigation · blindness · visual impairment · computer vision

• Haptic comparison of size (relative magnitude) in blind and sighted people

  Sarah A. Douglas, Shasta Willson · 2007 · Proceedings of the 9th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '07)

  Douglas and Willson's Assets '07 paper is a controlled psychophysical study of how blind and sighted users compare relative magnitude using a PHANToM force-feedback device — the workhorse haptic input-output device of the era. The motivating problem is practical: accessibility…

  haptics · visual impairment · blindness · multimodal · psychophysics

• Designing Assistive Technology for Blind Users

  Kristen Shinohara · 2006 · Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper reports on an observational and interview case study of a congenitally blind college student (pseudonym Sara) conducted in her home to develop design insights for improving interactions between blind users and everyday technological artifacts. The researcher used…

  blindness · assistive technology · human-centered design · ethnography · case study

• A Demonstration of the iCARE Portable Reader

  Terri Hedgpeth, John A. Black, Jr., Sethuraman Panchanathan · 2006 · Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper presents the portable iCARE Reader, an assistive device developed at Arizona State University that allows people who are blind or visually impaired to read printed text more naturally and conveniently than existing flatbed scanner-based reading systems. The project…

  blindness · visual impairment · OCR · assistive technology · reading systems

• Designing Auditory Displays to Facilitate Object Localization in Virtual Haptic 3D Environments

  Koen Crommentuijn, Fredrik Winberg · 2006 · Proceedings of the 8th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '06)

  This paper investigates five different auditory display designs to help blind users locate objects in a virtual haptic 3D environment explored with a PHANToM Desktop haptic device. While haptic devices give visually impaired users the ability to explore virtual 3D spaces by…

  auditory display · sonification · haptic feedback · virtual environment · blindness

• What's the Web Like If You Can't See It?

  Chieko Asakawa · 2005 · Proceedings of the 2005 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This landmark paper by Chieko Asakawa of IBM Japan traces the evolution of non-visual web access from the early 1990s through 2005, drawing extensively on the author's own experience as a blind researcher and developer. Asakawa chronicles the development of voice browsing…

  screen readers · voice browsers · alternative text · skip navigation · blindness

• 3D Sound Interactive Environments for Problem Solving

  Jaime Sánchez, Mauricio Sáenz · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper from the University of Chile presents AudioChile, a 3D sound virtual environment designed to help children with visual disabilities develop problem-solving skills through interactive exploration of Chilean geography and culture. AudioChile is a role-playing game…

  spatial audio · visual impairment · blindness · audio game · cognitive development

• Talking Braille: A Wireless Ubiquitous Computing Network for Orientation and Wayfinding

  David A. Ross, Alexander Lightman · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper presents the design and initial evaluation of the Talking Braille system, a wireless ubiquitous computing network designed to help people with vision loss navigate indoor public spaces. The system is built around the "Cyber Crumb" concept: tiny, inexpensive…

  wayfinding · orientation · blindness · ubiquitous computing · indoor navigation

• Automatic Production of Tactile Graphics from Scalable Vector Graphics

  Stephen E. Krufka, Kenneth E. Barner · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper from the University of Delaware presents a method for automatically converting Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) into tactile representations for blind users using a Braille embosser. The key innovation exploits the hierarchical tree structure inherent in vector graphics…

  tactile graphics · blindness · scalable vector graphics · braille embosser · image accessibility

• PLUMB: Displaying Graphs to the Blind Using an Active Auditory Interface

  Robert F. Cohen, Rui Yu, Arthur Meacham, Joelle Skaff · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This short paper presents PLUMB (exPLoring graphs at UMB), a system developed at UMass Boston that enables blind users to explore relational graphs through an active auditory interface on a tablet PC. The system addresses a fundamental barrier in computer science education: many…

  sonification · graph accessibility · blindness · auditory interface · computer science education

• A Wearable Face Recognition System for Individuals with Visual Impairments

  Sreekar Krishna, Greg Little, John Black, Sethuraman Panchanathan · 2005 · Proceedings of the 7th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '05)

  This paper presents the iCare Interaction Assistant, a wearable face recognition system developed at Arizona State University's Center for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing (CUbiC) to help people who are visually impaired identify individuals during social interactions. The system…

  face recognition · wearable computing · blindness · computer vision · social interaction

• Designing Search Engine User Interfaces for the Visually Impaired

  Barbara Leporini, Patrizia Andronico, Marina Buzzi · 2004 · Proceedings of the 2004 International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper examines the fundamental differences between visual and aural perception of search engine interfaces and proposes specific design guidelines to improve usability for blind and visually impaired users interacting via screen readers. The authors from the Italian…

  visual impairment · screen readers · search engines · user interface design · web navigation

• Auditory and Tactile Interfaces for Representing the Visual Effects on the Web

  Chieko Asakawa, Hironobu Takagi, Shuichi Ino, Tohru Ifukube · 2002 · Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper from IBM Japan and Hokkaido University explores how blind users can perceive the visual structure and emphasis effects of web pages through auditory and tactile interfaces. The researchers identified a critical gap: modern web pages increasingly use visual effects…

  sonification · tactile interface · blindness · web accessibility · nonvisual interaction

• Sketching Images Eyes-Free: A Grid-Based Dynamic Drawing Tool for the Blind

  Hesham M. Kamel, James A. Landay · 2002 · Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper presents IC2D (Integrated Communication 2 Draw), a keyboard-operated drawing tool that enables blind users to create and explore graphical images using a grid-based auditory interface. The system divides the screen into a 3x3 grid mapped to the telephone keypad…

  blindness · drawing · graphics · auditory interface · grid-based interface

• Improving the Accessibility of Aurally Rendered HTML Tables

  Robert Filepp, James Challenger, Daniela Rosu · 2002 · Proceedings of the Fifth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets 02)

  This paper from IBM's T.J. Watson Research Center proposes TTPML (Table To Prose Markup Language), an XML-compliant markup language designed to transform HTML tables into intelligible prose descriptions for blind and visually impaired users. The authors identify a fundamental…

  web accessibility · tables · aural rendering · screen reader · XML

• User Interface of a Home Page Reader

  Chieko Asakawa, Takashi Itoh · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper from IBM Japan's Tokyo Research Laboratory describes the design and evaluation of Home Page Reader, one of the earliest dedicated web browsers for blind users, which became an IBM Japan product in October 1997. The paper opens by framing the information access problem…

  screen readers · web accessibility · blindness · text-to-speech · nonvisual web access

• Auditory Navigation in Hyperspace: Design and Evaluation of a Non-Visual Hypermedia System for Blind Users

  Sarah Morley, Helen Petrie, Anne-Marie O'Neill, Peter McNally · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper from the University of Hertfordshire's Sensory Disabilities Research Unit presents the design and rigorous evaluation of DAHNI (Demonstrator of the ACCESS media Non-Visual Interface), a hypermedia system built specifically for blind users as part of the EU-funded…

  auditory interface · blindness · non-speech sounds · hypermedia · nonvisual navigation

• A Web Navigation Tool for the Blind

  Mary Zajicek, Chris Powell, Chris Reeves · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This short paper from Oxford Brookes University and the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) presents BrookesTalk, a prototype speech-output web browser designed to help blind users make rapid decisions about whether a web page is useful to them. The authors identified…

  web accessibility · blindness · information retrieval · screen readers · text summarization