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• Rhetoric vs Responsibility: How Tech Companies Shape AI for Accessibility

  Aparajita S Marathe, Quan Zhou, Achi Mishra, Anne Marie Piper · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Marathe, Zhou, Mishra, and Piper conduct a critical discourse analysis (CDA) of 126 public-facing blog posts and news articles published between 2016 and 2025 by 11 leading U.S.-based AI companies — Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Eleven Labs, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, OpenAI,…

  artificial intelligence · AI accessibility · critical discourse analysis · disability justice · critical disability studies

• Synergy of Artificial Intelligence and Extended Reality in Patient-focused Health and Well-Being Applications—A Systematic Review

  Tim Schwirtlich, Cheolmin Matthew Lee, Molly Beestrum, David C. Mohr · 2026 · ACM Transactions on Computing for Healthcare

  This systematic review, conducted by researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, maps the landscape of applications that combine artificial intelligence and extended reality (XR) for direct patient health and well-being outcomes. The review follows…

  extended reality · artificial intelligence · rehabilitation · mental health · accessibility

• "Computer Says No": Disabled Welfare Experiences and Envisioned Futures Under AI Governance

  Humphrey Curtis, Adam D G Jenkins, Alistair Gentry, Sioban Zacharek, Sally McVicker, Timothy Neate, Filip Bircanin · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Curtis and colleagues investigate how people with aphasia — a language impairment most often caused by stroke that affects reading, writing, speech, and comprehension — experience the increasingly digitised and AI-automated UK welfare state, and how they would redesign it. The…

  AI · artificial intelligence · AI governance · algorithmic decision-making · aphasia

• Exploring AI Opportunities in Deaf Education: Understanding Design Needs Through Teacher and Parent Perspectives in Bangladesh

  Md. Ataur Rahman Bhuiyan, Nadim Mahmud Dipu, Tanvir Rahman, Oindri Aurunima Sarker, Shidhartha Chakrabarty Turzo, Jannatun Noor · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 qualitative study investigates how AI-powered educational tools should be designed for Deaf learners in Bangladesh — a low-resource context where Bangla Sign Language (BdSL) is still evolving, datasets are small, and infrastructure (internet, electricity, devices)…

  deaf education · sign language · Bangla Sign Language · BdSL · artificial intelligence

• AI4XR: AI in Extended Reality for 3D Scene Editing and Accessibility Design

  Junlong Chen · 2026 · Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26) — Doctoral Consortium

  This CHI '26 Doctoral Consortium paper summarises Junlong Chen's PhD research at the University of Cambridge on integrating AI — specifically large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs) — into extended reality (XR) workflows. The research covers two…

  extended reality · virtual reality · artificial intelligence · large language models · vision-language models

• The Perceptual Gap: Why We Need Accessible XAI for Assistive Technologies

  Shadab H. Choudhury · 2026 · Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Choudhury (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) presents a position paper and targeted literature review arguing that explainable AI (XAI) — the body of methods that help users understand why a black-box model produced a particular output — is fundamentally inaccessible to…

  explainable AI · XAI · artificial intelligence · blind and low vision · deaf and hard of hearing

• Mapping Movies: A Mind-Map Approach to Aphasia-Friendly Video

  Shayan Bali, Alexandre Nevsky, Filip Bircanin, Timothy Neate · 2026 · Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Bali, Nevsky, Bircanin, and Neate (King's College London) target an under-served corner of media accessibility: viewers with aphasia and other complex communication needs (CCNs) for whom subtitles, audio description, and existing simplified-media interventions do not…

  aphasia · complex communication needs · video accessibility · cognitive accessibility · mind maps

• Before the Technological Fix: Scoping AI and AAC for Social Futures

  Seray B Ibrahim, Tom Griffiths, Michael Clarke, Simon Judge, Petr Slovak, Graham Pullin, Jeff Higginbotham · 2026 · Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Ibrahim and colleagues - a multi-institution team of researchers working at the intersection of AAC, HCI, and disability studies - argue that the recent surge of HCI work applying AI to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) is drifting away from where contemporary AAC…

  AAC · augmentative and alternative communication · artificial intelligence · scoping review · social interaction

• Designing Through Lived Experience: Reflections on Control, Embodiment, and Social Bias in Accessibility Research

  Atieh Taheri, Misha Sra, Patrick Carrington, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2025 · Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents an analytic autoethnography of three accessibility research projects led by the first author, Atieh Taheri, a disabled researcher with Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) who has used a wheelchair her entire life. Each project emerged from personal need and…

  disability studies · autoethnography · crip technoscience · participatory design · disability justice

• Check Now, Can You See It?: Exploring Voice and Video-Capable Language Models for Identifying and Spatially Locating Items of Interest for Blind and Low-Vision Travelers

  Aziz N Zeidieh, JooYoung Seo · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This experience report documents the lived experiences of two blind travelers — Aziz (28, blind in left eye, 20/2200 in right) and JooYoung (35, blind in right eye, limited vision in left) — as they adapted commercially available voice and video-capable language models (VVLMs)…

  artificial intelligence · navigation · blindness and visual impairment · multimodal AI · large language models

• Morae: Proactively Pausing UI Agents for User Choices

  Yi-Hao Peng, Dingzeyu Li, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amy Pavel · 2025 · Proceedings of the 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '25)

  This paper introduces Morae, a UI agent that proactively pauses during automated task execution to involve blind and low-vision (BLV) users in critical decisions, rather than completing tasks end-to-end without user input. The work is motivated by a field study with four BLV…

  UI agents · blind and low vision · large language models · human-agent interaction · user agency

• The Future of Urban Accessibility: The Role of AI

  Jon E. Froehlich, Chu Li, Maryam Hosseini, Fabio Miranda, Andres Sevtsuk, Yochai Eisenberg · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '24)

  This workshop paper examines the emerging role of artificial intelligence in designing equitable and accessible cities, transportation systems, and navigation tools for people with disabilities. The authors — spanning HCI, urban planning, public health, and accessibility…

  urban accessibility · artificial intelligence · smart cities · autonomous vehicles · pedestrian infrastructure

• Context-Aware Image Descriptions for Web Accessibility

  Ananya Gubbi Mohanbabu, Amy Pavel · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '24)

  This paper addresses a fundamental limitation of current AI-generated image descriptions: they describe images in isolation without considering the surrounding webpage context. When blind and low-vision (BLV) users encounter images on the web, what they need to know about an…

  alt text · image descriptions · blind and low vision · artificial intelligence · large language models

• Misfitting With AI: How Blind People Verify and Contest AI Errors

  Rahaf Alharbi, Pa Lor, Jaylin Herskovitz, Sarita Schoenebeck, Robin N. Brewer · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents an in-depth qualitative study with 26 blind participants examining how they encounter, verify, and contest errors produced by AI-enabled visual assistance technologies (AI VAT) such as Seeing AI, Be My Eyes, and ChatGPT. While blind people increasingly rely…

  blind users · artificial intelligence · visual assistance technology · explainable AI · AI errors

• Toward Effective Communication of AI-Based Decisions in Assistive Tools: Conveying Confidence and Doubt to People with Visual Impairments at Accelerated Speech

  Taslima Akter, Manohar Swaminathan, Apu Kapadia · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates how people with visual impairments (PVIs) perceive confidence and doubt in speakers' voices when audio is played at accelerated speeds — a critical question because AI-based assistive tools (scene descriptors, facial recognition, image captioners) can…

  visual impairments · artificial intelligence · speech processing · screen readers · assistive technology

• AAC with Automated Vocabulary from Photographs: Insights from School and Speech-Language Therapy Settings

  Mauricio Fontana de Vargas, Jiamin Dai, Karyn Moffatt · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper presents Click AAC, a prototype mobile application that automatically generates situation-specific communication boards from photographs using computer vision and natural language processing. Traditional symbol-based AAC devices organize vocabulary hierarchically by…

  augmentative and alternative communication · AAC · autism · computer vision · just-in-time vocabulary

• Accessible PDFs: Applying Artificial Intelligence for Automated Remediation of STEM PDFs

  Felix M. Schmitt-Koopmann, Elaine M. Huang, Alireza Darvishy · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2022)

  This Ph.D. research paper presents a plan to leverage artificial intelligence to automate the remediation of PDF documents from STEM fields, addressing one of the most significant barriers to information access for people with visual impairments. The Portable Document Format…

  PDF accessibility · document remediation · artificial intelligence · STEM accessibility · mathematical formulae

• Privacy Concerns for Visual Assistance Technologies

  Abigale Stangl, Kristina Shiroma, Nathan Davis, Bo Xie, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Leah Findlater, Danna Gurari · 2022 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This comprehensive study examines privacy concerns of blind users when sharing images and videos with visual assistance technologies (VATs) like Aira, Be My Eyes, and Seeing AI. The research addresses a fundamental tension: blind people must share visual data to receive…

  visual impairment · privacy · visual assistance technology · artificial intelligence · remote sighted assistance

• Intelligent Approaches in the Software Development Process: A Systematic Literature Mapping

  Luciano Arruda Teran, Alan Trindade de Almeida Silva, Giselle Lorrane Nobre Melo, Marcelle Pereira Mota · 2021 · Proceedings of the X Latin American Conference on Human Computer Interaction (CLIHC)

  This short paper from the Federal University of Pará in Brazil presents a systematic literature mapping (SLM) investigating how intelligent approaches — methods and tools using artificial intelligence concepts — are used to assess and validate accessibility requirements during…

  software engineering · accessibility testing · artificial intelligence · automated testing · systematic review

• Fully Autonomous Vehicles for People with Visual Impairment: Policy, Accessibility, and Future Directions

  Paul D. S. Fink, Jessica A. Holz, Nicholas A. Giudice · 2021 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This policy analysis examines how fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs) could transform mobility for people who are blind or visually impaired (BVI), while arguing that current US legislation fails to address their accessibility needs. With over 25 million Americans reporting…

  autonomous vehicles · transportation policy · blindness · visual impairment · accessible design

• Lessons Learned in Designing AI for Autistic Adults

  Andrew Begel, John Tang, Sean Andrist, Michael Barnett, Tony Carbary, Piali Choudhury, Edward Cutrell, Alberto Fung, Sasa Junuzovic, Daniel McDuff, Kael Rowan, Shibashankar Sahoo, Jennifer Frances Waldern, Jessica Wolk, Hui Zheng, Annuska Zolyomi · 2020 · ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This short paper from Microsoft Research presents a candid account of a design failure and the valuable lessons it produced. The team set out to build Video Calling for Autism (VC4A), a video calling application with an "Expressiveness Mirror" that used AI-driven computer vision…

  autism · artificial intelligence · emotion recognition · video calling · participatory design

• Visual Content Considered Private by People Who are Blind

  Abigale Stangl, Kristina Shiroma, Bo Xie, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Danna Gurari · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This paper presents the first empirical study investigating what types of visual content people who are blind consider private, in the context of their use of Visual Interpreters or Description Services (VIDS) — services like Seeing AI, Aira, Be My Eyes, and TapTapSee that…

  visual accessibility · blindness and low vision · privacy · computer vision · artificial intelligence

• Combining Semantic Tools for Automatic Evaluation of Alternative Texts

  Carlos Duarte, Carlos M. Duarte, Luís Carriço · 2019 · Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents SCREW v2, an updated algorithm for automatically assessing the quality of alternative texts for images on web pages from an accessibility perspective. The work is motivated by the EU Directive 2016/2102, which requires monitoring the accessibility of public…

  alternative text · automated accessibility testing · image accessibility · semantic analysis · computer vision

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Web Accessibility: Is Conformance Evaluation a Way Forward?

  Shadi Abou-Zahra, Judy Brewer, Michael Cooper · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This short paper from three W3C/WAI staff members explores the potential and limitations of applying artificial intelligence to improve web accessibility, proposing accessibility conformance evaluation as a strategic pathway to accelerate AI adoption in this domain. The authors…

  artificial intelligence · web accessibility · WCAG · automated testing · machine learning

• BrowseWithMe: An Online Clothes Shopping Assistant for People with Visual Impairments

  Abigale J. Stangl, Esha Kothari, Suyog D. Jain, Tom Yeh, Kristen Grauman, Danna Gurari · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2018)

  This paper from the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Texas at Austin addresses the inaccessibility of online clothes shopping for people with visual impairments through both empirical investigation and a prototype AI-powered assistant called BrowseWithMe. The…

  blindness · low vision · web accessibility · online shopping · computer vision