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• Understanding and Improving Drilled-Down Information Extraction from Online Data Visualizations for Screen-Reader Users

  Ather Sharif, Andrew M. Zhang, Katharina Reinecke, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This extended abstract presents enhancements to VoxLens, an open-source JavaScript plug-in that improves the accessibility of online data visualizations for screen-reader users (SRUs) through a multimodal approach. Over 7.6 million people in the United States use screen readers,…

  screen readers · data visualization accessibility · alternative text · sonification · blind and low vision

• On the independent and sustainable mobility of people with visual impairments

  Gabriele Galimberti · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This doctoral consortium extended abstract outlines a research project investigating the factors that enable or hinder independent mobility for people with blindness or visual impairments (BVI), with a particular focus on the link between mobility autonomy and environmental…

  visual impairment · blind and low vision · independent living · public transportation · navigation

• Who is speaking: Unpacking In-text Speaker Identification Preference of Viewers who are Deaf and Hard of Hearing while Watching Live Captioned Television Program

  Akhter Al Amin, Joseph Mendis, Raja Kushalnagar, Christian Vogler, Matt Huenerfauth · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This study systematically investigates how the number of speakers onscreen in live television programs affects Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) viewers' preferences for different in-text speaker identification methods in captions. Live TV news and interviews often feature multiple…

  deaf and hard of hearing · captioning · live captioning · television accessibility · caption quality

• "I stepped into a puddle": Non-Visual Texting in Nomadic Contexts

  Pegah Karimi, Erin Brady, Aqueasha Martin-Hammond, Davide Bolchini · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This study investigates the under-explored practice of texting by people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) while navigating outdoors — what the authors term "nomadic contexts." While previous research has examined accessible text entry methods (screen readers, speech…

  blind and low vision · text entry · mobile accessibility · navigation · assistive technology

• Accessibility Metatesting: Comparing Nine Testing Tools

  Jonathan Robert Pool · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This short paper presents a systematic empirical comparison of nine automated web accessibility testing tools that are amenable to integration into multi-tool testing regimes (free or nearly free, controllable via APIs or NPM packages, and comprehensive in scope). The nine tools…

  automated accessibility testing · web accessibility · accessibility testing · accessibility evaluation · WCAG compliance

• OPTIMAL-EM: Optimised Population Sourcing for Web Accessibility Evaluation

  Alexander Hambley, Yeliz Yesilada, Markel Vigo, Simon Harper · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This extended abstract presents OPTIMAL-EM, a prototypical tool and framework designed to optimise the web accessibility evaluation process by systematically selecting representative pages from a website for auditing. Currently, accessibility evaluations supported by…

  automated accessibility testing · web accessibility · accessibility evaluation · web crawling · machine learning

• Bring Environments to People – A Case Study of Virtual Tours in Accessibility Assessment for People with Limited Mobility

  Hao-Yun Chi, Jingzhen Sha, Yang Zhang · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This study presents the first user research with people with limited mobility on using virtual tours — 3D digital replicas of physical environments captured with 360-degree cameras and depth sensors — to remotely assess the accessibility of indoor spaces. People with mobility…

  physical accessibility · wheelchair users · virtual reality · accessible housing · mobility impairments

• Towards Optimised Population Sourcing for Web Accessibility Evaluation

  Alexander Hambley · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This doctoral consortium extended abstract presents a PhD project proposing a novel framework and prototypical tool for optimising web accessibility evaluation through statistically representative page sampling. The work is the single-author companion to the multi-author…

  automated accessibility testing · web accessibility · accessibility evaluation · web crawling · machine learning

• Cognitive Accessibility of Digital Payments: A Literature Review

  Jiamin Dai, John Miedema, Sebastian Hernandez, Alexandra Sutton-Lalani, Karyn Moffatt · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A '23)

  This literature review examines 30 scholarly publications (2012-2022) to characterize the cognitive accessibility challenges and design strategies for digital payments, focusing on the experiences of older adults and people with neurodiverse needs including dementia,…

  cognitive accessibility · financial technology · digital payments · banking accessibility · older adults

• Understanding and Improving Drilled-Down Information Extraction from Online Data Visualizations for Screen-Reader Users

  Ather Sharif, Olivia H. Wang, Alida T. Muongchan, Katharina Reinecke, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This full research paper presents a comprehensive investigation into how screen-reader users (SRUs) extract drilled-down information from online data visualizations, and how the VoxLens tool can be improved to support this process. While prior work on VoxLens focused on holistic…

  screen readers · data visualization · voice interface · information extraction · natural language processing

• A platform to check website compliance with web accessibility standards

  Reinaldo Ferraz, Ana Duarte, João Bárbara, Adriano C.M. Pereira, Wagner Meira · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This short paper presents the TIC Web Acessibilidade platform, a comprehensive system for evaluating and monitoring the accessibility of Brazilian government websites at scale. Developed by NIC.br (the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee's executive arm) in collaboration with…

  automated testing · web accessibility · government accessibility · accessibility monitoring · web crawler

• UnlockedMaps: A Web-Based Map for Visualizing the Real-Time Accessibility of Urban Rail Transit Stations

  Ather Sharif, Aneesha Ramesh, Qianqian Yu, Trung-Anh H. Nguyen, Xuhai Xu · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents UnlockedMaps, an open-data web-based map that visualizes the real-time elevator status of urban rail transit stations in six North American cities: Bay Area, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Toronto. The work addresses a critical gap in existing…

  transit accessibility · urban accessibility · open data · web-based maps · elevator outages

• Banal Autistic Social Media: A Found Footage Autoethnography

  Kay Kender, Katta Spiel · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This position paper argues for designing social media platforms that support thriving neurodiverse online communities, moving beyond deficit-focused approaches that treat autistic users as needing to be "fixed" to match neurotypical social norms. The authors introduce "Banal…

  autism · neurodiversity · social media · design justice · autoethnography

• Notably Inaccessible — Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility

  Venkatesh Potluri, Sudheesh Singanamalla, Nussara Tieanklin, Jennifer Mankoff · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first large-scale analysis of the accessibility of computational notebooks — interactive documents combining code, text, and data visualizations that have become the standard tool for data science work. The researchers analyzed 100,000 Jupyter notebooks…

  computational notebooks · data science · screen readers · blind and visually impaired · data visualization

• A Demonstration of RASSAR: Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality

  Xia Su, Kaiming Cheng, Han Zhang, Jaewook Lee, Wyatt Olson, Jon E. Froehlich · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper introduces RASSAR (Room Accessibility and Safety Scanning in Augmented Reality), a mobile AR application that semi-automatically identifies, localizes, and visualizes indoor accessibility and safety issues using iPhone LiDAR sensors and real-time computer vision.…

  augmented reality · computer vision · indoor accessibility · object detection · LiDAR

• Bridging the Gap: Towards Advancing Privacy and Accessibility

  Rahaf Alharbi, Robin N. Brewer, Gesu India, Lotus Zhang, Leah Findlater, Yixin Zou, Abigale Stangl · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This workshop proposal addresses a critical but understudied gap between the accessibility and privacy research communities. The authors argue that while all technology has privacy implications, accessibility tools carry particularly overlooked privacy risks — and conversely,…

  privacy · accessibility · intersectionality · AI ethics · blind and low vision

• How Do People with Limited Movement Personalize Upper-Body Gestures? Considerations for the Design of Personalized and Accessible Gesture Interfaces

  Momona Yamagami, Alexandra A Portnova-Fahreeva, Junhan Kong, Jacob O. Wobbrock, Jennifer Mankoff · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This study investigates how people with upper-body motor impairments design personalized gestures for common device functions like move, select, zoom-in, open, and delete. The researchers recruited 25 participants with conditions including spinal cord injury (13), muscular…

  motor impairments · gesture input · personalization · wearable sensors · electromyography

• 30 Years of Solving the Wrong Problem: How Recolouring Tool Design Fails those with Colour Vision Deficiency

  Connor Geddes, David R. Flatla, Ciabhan L. Connelly · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper critically examines three decades of research into recolouring tools — colour filters and daltonization algorithms designed to help people with Colour Vision Deficiency (CVD) differentiate colours — and finds that these tools fundamentally misunderstand how people…

  colour vision deficiency · colour blindness · recolouring · colour filters · daltonization

• Comparing Locomotion Techniques in Virtual Reality for People with Upper-Body Motor Impairments

  Rachel L. Franz, Jinghan Yu, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper presents the first empirical study comparing the accessibility of virtual reality locomotion techniques — methods for navigating virtual environments — for people with upper-body motor impairments. Despite over 100 distinct locomotion techniques existing in VR and the…

  virtual reality · locomotion · motor impairments · VR accessibility · interaction techniques

• Understanding Personalized Accessibility through Teachable AI: Designing and Evaluating Find My Things for People who are Blind or Low Vision

  Cecily Morrison, Martin Grayson, Rita Faia Marques, Daniela Massiceti, Camilla Longden, Linda Wen, Edward Cutrell · 2023 · Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '23)

  This paper from Microsoft Research presents Find My Things, one of the first fully realized end-to-end teachable AI applications for accessibility. The app allows people who are blind or low vision to teach their phone to recognize personal objects — keys, earbuds, lip balm,…

  teachable AI · object recognition · blind and low vision · personalization · few-shot learning

• A Diary Study in Social Virtual Reality: Impact of Avatars with Disability Signifiers on the Social Experiences of People with Disabilities

  Kexin Zhang, Elmira Deldari, Yaxing Yao, Yuhang Zhao · 2023 · ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents a two-week diary study exploring how avatars with disability signifiers (DS) affect the social experiences of people with disabilities (PWD) in social virtual reality platforms, specifically VRChat. Disability signifiers are visual features added to avatars…

  social virtual reality · disability signifiers · avatars · harassment · identity expression

• Blending Accessibility in UI Framework Documentation to Build Awareness

  Maulishree Pandey, Tao Dong · 2023 · ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper introduces the Blended Approach (BA), a novel framework for integrating accessibility information throughout UI framework documentation rather than confining it to a single dedicated accessibility page. The authors argue that the widespread industry practice of…

  developer education · documentation · accessibility awareness · UI frameworks · Flutter

• Exploring Community-Driven Descriptions for Making Livestreams Accessible

  Daniel Killough, Amy Pavel · 2023 · ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the feasibility of using livestream community members — sighted viewers who are domain experts in the content being streamed — to provide real-time descriptions that make livestreams accessible to viewers with visual impairments. Livestreams present…

  audio description · livestreaming · blind and low vision · crowdsourcing · video accessibility

• "If I'm supposed to be the facilitator, I should be the host": Understanding the Accessibility of Videoconferencing for Blind and Low Vision Meeting Facilitators

  Taslima Akter, Yoonha Cha, Isabela Figueira, Stacy M. Branham, Anne Marie Piper · 2023 · ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates how blind and low vision (BLV) professionals facilitate meetings using videoconferencing tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet, and the unique accessibility challenges they face in leadership roles. While prior research has examined…

  blind and low vision · videoconferencing · remote work · screen readers · workplace accessibility

• Tackling the Lack of a Practical Guide in Disability-Centered Research

  Emma J. McDonnell, Kelly Avery Mack, Kathrin Gerling, Katta Spiel, Cynthia L. Bennett, Robin N. Brewer, Rua Mae Williams, Garreth W. Tigwell · 2023 · ASSETS '23: Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This workshop paper proposes a structured effort to develop a practical guide for conducting disability-centered accessibility research. The authors — a team of eight researchers across multiple institutions, several of whom are disabled scholars — argue that while the HCI and…

  disability justice · research methods · participatory design · power dynamics · disability studies