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• VizWiz: Nearly Real-Time Answers to Visual Questions

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Chandrika Jayant, Hanjie Ji, Greg Little, Andrew Miller, Robert C. Miller, Aubrey Tatarowicz, Brandyn White, Samuel White, Tom Yeh · 2010 · Proceedings of the 2010 International Cross Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces VizWiz, a pioneering mobile application that enables blind and low-vision people to get nearly real-time answers to visual questions by connecting their smartphone cameras to remote paid workers on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Users take a photo with their…

  blind and low vision · crowdsourcing · assistive technology · mobile accessibility · human computation

• Accessibility by Demonstration: Enabling End Users to Guide Developers to Web Accessibility Solutions

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Jeremy T. Brudvik, Bernie Zhang · 2010 · Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This paper introduces Accessibility by Demonstration (ABD), a novel approach to accessibility evaluation that lets assistive technology users record the accessibility problems they encounter as shareable, replayable demonstrations and send them directly to web developers. ABD is…

  web accessibility · accessibility testing · screen readers · blind and low vision · accessibility evaluation

• EasySnap: Real-time Audio Feedback for Blind Photography

  Samuel White, Hanjie Ji, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2010 · Adjunct Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2010)

  This demonstration paper presents EasySnap, an iPhone application that enables blind and low-vision users to take high-quality photographs by providing real-time audio feedback as they point their camera phones. The system addresses a key barrier: blind people want to take…

  blind and low vision · computer vision · mobile accessibility · assistive technology · photography

• Are Synthesized Video Descriptions Acceptable?

  Masatomo Kobayashi, Trisha O'Connell, Bryan Gould, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2010 · Proceedings of the 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2010)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo and WGBH National Center for Accessible Media investigates whether text-to-speech (TTS) synthesised narrations are an acceptable alternative to human-narrated audio descriptions for online videos. While accessibility standards like WCAG 2.0,…

  audio description · video accessibility · text-to-speech · speech synthesis · web accessibility

• Evaluating Existing Audio CAPTCHAs and an Interface Optimized for Non-Visual Use

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anna C. Cavender · 2009 · Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2009)

  This paper presents the first large-scale evaluation of audio CAPTCHAs — the purportedly accessible alternative to visual CAPTCHAs — revealing that they are dramatically more difficult for both blind and sighted users. The study gathered 10 types of audio CAPTCHAs from major…

  blind and low vision · web accessibility · screen readers · CAPTCHA · authentication

• A Syntactic Analysis of Accessibility to a Corpus of Statistical Graphs

  Leo Ferres, Petro Verkhogliad, Livia Sumegi, Louis Boucher, Martin Lachance, Gitte Lindgaard · 2008 · Proceedings of the 2008 International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from Carleton University and Statistics Canada tackles a persistent accessibility challenge: making statistical graphs accessible to blind and visually impaired users. The authors analysed a corpus of 120 real-world statistical graphs from Statistics Canada's daily…

  data visualization · graph accessibility · blind and low vision · alt text · knowledge representation

• Increasing Web Accessibility by Automatically Judging Alternative Text Quality

  Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2007 · Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2007)

  This paper presents a machine learning classifier that can automatically judge whether alternative text assigned to web images is appropriate or inappropriate, using contextual features rather than visual analysis of the image itself. The research addresses a persistent web…

  alternative text · web accessibility · machine learning · screen readers · automated testing

• Transcoding Proxy for Nonvisual Web Access

  Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa · 2000 · Proceedings of the Fourth International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '00)

  This paper presents a transcoding proxy system developed at IBM Japan that transforms existing web pages to be more accessible for blind users. The authors address the growing problem of web pages being designed with increasingly complex layouts that cram multiple functions and…

  web accessibility · screen reader · transcoding · proxy · blind and low vision

• Digital Talking Books on a PC: A Usability Evaluation of the Prototype DAISY Playback Software

  Sarah Morley · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper describes the design and usability evaluation of the first PC-based DAISY (Digital Audio-Based Information System) playback software, developed at the request of the Swedish Braille and Talking Book Library. The DAISY system represented a major advance over…

  DAISY · digital talking book · usability testing · blind and low vision · auditory navigation

• Comparing Effects of Navigational Interface Modalities on Speaker Prosodics

  Julie Baca · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper investigates whether speech-only (displayless) interfaces impose a measurable cognitive burden on users compared to multimodal interfaces that include visual or tactile components. The research uses an innovative methodology: rather than relying on subjective workload…

  speech technology · cognitive load · non-visual interaction · navigation · prosody

• Haptic Virtual Reality for Blind Computer Users

  Chetz Colwell, Helen Petrie, Diana Kornbrot, Andrew Hardwick, Stephen Furner · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper presents three experiments investigating how blind and sighted people perceive virtual textures and 3D objects through the Impulse Engine 3000, a force-feedback haptic device with a probe that users manipulate in three degrees of freedom. The research aimed to…

  haptic technology · virtual reality · blind and low vision · tactile accessibility · virtual texture

• TGuide: A Guidance System for Tactile Image Exploration

  Martin Kurze · 1998 · Proceedings of the Third International ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '98)

  This paper presents TGuide, a system that actively guides blind users' hands during exploration of tactile graphics using a novel vibrotactile directional output device. The author identifies three key problems with unaided tactile image exploration: blind users cannot get a…

  tactile graphics · blind and low vision · vibrotactile display · haptic technology · directional guidance

• An Interactive Method for Accessing Tables in HTML

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

  This paper from IBM Japan proposes a method for converting HTML tables into non-visual, navigable representations for screen reader users. At the time, Screen Reader/2 (the Japanese version of OS/2's screen reader) could read displayed text information line by line and word by…

  web accessibility · screen reader · HTML tables · table accessibility · blind and low vision

• Interactive audio documents

  T. V. Raman, David Gries · 1994 · Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '94)

  This paper describes the browsing component of AsTeR (Audio System for Technical Readings), an interactive computing system developed by T. V. Raman that audio-formats electronic documents written in LaTeX to produce navigable audio documents. The paper addresses a fundamental…

  mathematical accessibility · audio formatting · screen readers · document accessibility · blind and low vision

• An experimental sound-based hierarchical menu navigation system for visually handicapped use of graphical user interfaces

  Arthur I. Karshmer, P. Brawner, G. Reiswig · 1994 · Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '94)

  This paper addresses the accessibility crisis created by the shift from character-based computer interfaces to graphical user interfaces (GUIs) in the early 1990s. The authors note that earlier text-based systems were well-served by assistive technologies like screen readers,…

  GUI accessibility · sonification · auditory interface · blind and low vision · menu navigation

• Providing access to graphical user interfaces — not graphical screens

  W. Keith Edwards, Elizabeth D. Mynatt, Kathryn Stockton · 1994 · Proceedings of the First Annual ACM Conference on Assistive Technologies (Assets '94)

  This paper argues that screen readers for graphical user interfaces should provide access to application interfaces at the semantic level rather than merely translating graphical screen contents. The authors from Georgia Tech's GVU Center identify three levels of interface…

  GUI accessibility · screen readers · accessibility API · blind and low vision · auditory interface