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• Making Memes Accessible

  Cole Gleason, Amy Pavel, Xingyu Liu, Patrick Carrington, Lydia B. Chilton, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper presents two semi-automatic methods for making internet image macro memes accessible to people with vision impairments: rich alternative text descriptions and audio macro memes. Memes are a pervasive form of online communication, yet they are almost entirely…

  alternative text · blind · low vision · social media · image accessibility

• Effect of Automatic Sign Recognition Performance on the Usability of Video-Based Search Interfaces for Sign Language Dictionaries

  Oliver Alonzo, Abraham Glasser, Matt Huenerfauth · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper investigates how the performance of automatic sign recognition technology affects user satisfaction when searching for unfamiliar words in an ASL-to-English dictionary. Looking up an unknown sign in ASL is fundamentally harder than looking up an unknown written word:…

  sign language · ASL · sign language recognition · dictionary · Deaf and hard of hearing

• CaBot: Designing and Evaluating an Autonomous Navigation Robot for Blind People

  João Guerreiro, Daisuke Sato, Saki Asakawa, Huixu Dong, Kris M. Kitani, Chieko Asakawa · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper presents CaBot (Carry-on roBot), an autonomous suitcase-shaped navigation robot designed to guide blind people to destinations in unfamiliar indoor environments while avoiding obstacles. Unlike smartphone navigation apps that provide turn-by-turn instructions but…

  navigation robot · blind · orientation and mobility · haptic feedback · LiDAR

• StateLens: A Reverse Engineering Solution for Making Existing Dynamic Touchscreens Accessible

  Anhong Guo, Junhan Kong, Michael Rivera, Frank F. Xu, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2019 · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

  This paper presents StateLens, a three-part system that makes existing dynamic touchscreen interfaces accessible to blind users without requiring any modification to the touchscreen hardware or software. Blind people routinely encounter inaccessible touchscreens on coffee…

  touchscreen accessibility · blindness · computer vision · crowdsourcing · reverse engineering

• Hacking Blind Navigation

  João Guerreiro, Hernisa Kacorri, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Edward Cutrell, Daisuke Sato, Dragan Ahmetovic, Chieko Asakawa · 2019 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

  This workshop summary describes a one-day CHI 2019 workshop designed to bring together researchers from multiple disciplines working on assistive navigation technologies for blind people. The organizers — experts from Carnegie Mellon University, University of Maryland, Microsoft…

  blind navigation · orientation and mobility · assistive technology · visual impairment · computer vision

• BBeep: A Sonic Collision Avoidance System for Blind Travellers and Nearby Pedestrians

  Seita Kayukawa, Keita Higuchi, João Guerreiro, Shigeo Morishima, Yoichi Sato, Kris Kitani, Chieko Asakawa · 2019 · Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '19)

  This paper presents BBeep, an assistive suitcase-shaped system designed to help blind travellers navigate crowded public spaces such as international airports, train stations, and shopping malls. The authors argue that existing blind-navigation research has focused largely on…

  blind navigation · obstacle avoidance · collision avoidance · assistive technology · wearable technology

• A TensorFlow-based Assistive Technology System for Users with Visual Impairments

  Davide Mulfari · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This extended abstract presents a wearable computer vision system that uses deep learning to classify objects in a blind user’s surroundings and provide audio descriptions via text-to-speech. The system addresses a limitation of smartphone-based object recognition apps: people…

  computer vision · deep learning · blind · visual impairment · wearable technology

• Accessify: An ML Powered Application to Provide Accessible Images on Web Sites

  Shivam Singh, Anurag Bhandari, Nishith Pathak · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This demonstration paper presents Accessify, a browser plugin that uses machine learning to automatically generate alternative text descriptions for all images on a website, injecting them into the page’s DOM so screen readers can access them. The system addresses the persistent…

  alternative text · image accessibility · machine learning · browser extension · computer vision

• Multi-view Mouth Renderization for Assisting Lip-reading

  Andrea Britto Mattos, Dario Augusto Borges Oliveira · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents an assistive tool that uses Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) to enhance video for people who rely on lip-reading. The core problem is that lip-readers generally prefer a frontal view of a speaker's face, but in real-world video the speaker may be…

  lip-reading · hearing impairment · Deaf and hard of hearing · deep learning · generative adversarial networks

• Investigating Cursor-based Interactions to Support Non-Visual Exploration in the Real World

  Anhong Guo, Saige McVea, Xu Wang, Patrick Clary, Ken Goldman, Yang Li, Yu Zhong, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2018)

  This paper from Google and Carnegie Mellon University defines and compares three cursor-based interaction techniques designed to help blind and low vision people attend to specific items within complex real-world visual scenes. While computer vision systems like Seeing AI and…

  blindness · low vision · computer vision · non-visual exploration · mobile accessibility

• 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

• A Demo of Talkit++: Interacting with 3D Printed Models Using an iOS Device

  Lei Shi, Zhuohao Zhang, Shiri Azenkot · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2018)

  This Cornell Tech demo presents Talkit++, an iOS application that adds interactive multimedia labels to 3D printed tactile models for visually impaired students. Teachers of the visually impaired (TVIs) increasingly use 3D printers to create tactile learning materials, but these…

  blindness · low vision · 3D printing · tactile accessibility · computer vision

• Exploring the Performance of Facial Expression Recognition Technologies on Deaf Adults and Their Children

  Irene Rogan Shaffer · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2018)

  This Boston University student research paper investigates how commercial facial expression recognition services perform on Deaf ASL signers and Children of Deaf Adults (CODAs) compared to hearing non-signers. The study is motivated by a critical problem: in ASL and other sign…

  deaf and hard of hearing · sign language · facial expression recognition · emotion recognition · AI fairness

• Crowd-AI Camera Sensing in the Real World

  Anhong Guo, Anuraag Jain, Shomiron Ghose, Gierad Laput, Chris Harrison, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2018 · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

  This paper presents Zensors++, a hybrid crowd-AI camera sensing system that allows users to point a networked camera at a scene, define a natural language question about it (such as "Is the coffee machine in use?" or "How many people are in the room?"), and receive continuous,…

  crowdsourcing · computer vision · human computation · machine learning · smart environments

• Mind Your Crossings: Mining GIS Imagery for Crosswalk Localization

  Dragan Ahmetovic, Roberto Manduchi, James M. Coughlan, Sergio Mascetti · 2017 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This paper presents a computer vision system for automatically detecting and localizing zebra crosswalks in urban environments by mining existing geospatial image databases, specifically Google satellite imagery and Google Street View. The motivation is that blind pedestrians…

  visual impairment · orientation and mobility · computer vision · navigation · crowdsourcing

• Making Real-World Interfaces Accessible Through Crowdsourcing, Computer Vision, and Fabrication

  Anhong Guo, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2017 · Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents two complementary systems designed to make inaccessible physical interfaces usable by blind people: VizLens and Facade. The research addresses a fundamental and long-standing accessibility problem — the vast majority of physical interfaces in…

  physical accessibility · computer vision · crowdsourcing · 3D printing · assistive technology

• Real-Time Depth-Camera Based Hand Tracking for ASL Recognition

  Brandon Taylor, Anind Dey, Daniel Siewiorek, Asim Smailagic · 2017 · Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper validates the use of a publicly available real-time hand tracking algorithm (Sphere-Mesh) for recognizing American Sign Language (ASL) handshapes using a depth camera. Sign Language Recognition (SLR) has long been a motivating goal for high-precision…

  sign language recognition · hand tracking · computer vision · depth camera · machine learning

• Speed-Accuracy Tradeoffs for Detecting Sign Language Content in Video Sharing Sites

  Frank M. Shipman, Satyakiran Duggina, Caio D.D. Monteiro, Ricardo Gutierrez-Osuna · 2017 · Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper addresses the problem of automatically detecting sign language content in videos on sharing platforms like YouTube and Vimeo. For many deaf and hard-of-hearing people, sign language is their primary communication medium, and they rely on online video content to stay…

  sign language · computer vision · video classification · information retrieval · deaf and hard of hearing

• Identifying Visual Cues to Improve Independent Indoor Navigation for Blind Individuals

  Cameron Tyler Cassidy · 2017 · Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This student research competition paper proposes a novel approach to indoor navigation for blind individuals that focuses on providing environmental awareness and a "sense of space" rather than traditional point-to-point directions. The author argues that most existing…

  indoor navigation · blindness · computer vision · eye tracking · wayfinding

• "Is Someone There? Do They Have a Gun": How Visual Information about Others Can Improve Personal Safety Management for Blind Individuals

  Stacy M. Branham, Ali Abdolrahmani, William Easley, Morgan Scheuerman, Erick Ronquillo, Amy Hurst · 2017 · Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper investigates an underexplored dimension of accessibility for people who are blind: the need for visual information about other people to manage personal physical safety. While decades of assistive technology research have focused on helping blind individuals navigate…

  blindness · personal safety · facial recognition · assistive technology · navigation

• Imagining Artificial Intelligence Applications with People with Visual Disabilities using Tactile Ideation

  Cecily Morrison, Edward Cutrell, Anupama Dhareshwar, Kevin Doherty, Anja Thieme, Alex Taylor · 2017 · Proceedings of the 19th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '17)

  This paper presents a novel tactile ideation methodology for working with people with visual disabilities to imagine future AI applications, and reports on cross-cultural workshops conducted in the UK (6 participants) and India (8 participants). Rather than asking users about…

  artificial intelligence · blindness · visual impairment · participatory design · design methodology

• "Hands On" Visual Recognition for Visually Impaired Users

  Joan Sosa-García, Francesca Odone · 2017 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper presents a collaborative visual recognition system designed to help blind or visually impaired (BVI) users identify specific product instances — distinguishing between brands, models, or types of objects that feel similar when handled. While BVI individuals can often…

  visual impairment · object recognition · computer vision · assistive technology · wearable technology

• Improving the Accessibility of Mobile OCR Apps Via Interactive Modalities

  Michael Cutter, Roberto Manduchi · 2017 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a critical usability challenge in mobile OCR for blind users: while OCR technology itself works well, it requires properly framed images at adequate resolution—something difficult to achieve without visual feedback. Blind users commonly hold the camera too…

  OCR · mobile accessibility · blindness · camera guidance · computer vision

• People with Visual Impairment Training Personal Object Recognizers: Feasibility and Challenges

  Hernisa Kacorri, Kris M. Kitani, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chieko Asakawa · 2017 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper explores whether people with visual impairments can train their own personalized object recognition systems using a smartphone camera and a small number of example photos. The authors address a fundamental limitation of existing object recognition tools for blind…

  object recognition · computer vision · blindness · transfer learning · personalization

• Computer vision-based analysis of web page structure for assistive interfaces

  Michael Cormier · 2016 · Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This doctoral consortium paper proposes a novel approach to understanding web page structure by analyzing rendered page images using computer vision, rather than relying on the DOM tree or source code as most existing web page segmentation methods do. The author argues that the…

  computer vision · web page segmentation · screen reader accessibility · cognitive accessibility · machine learning