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• Listen to Everything You Want to Read with Capti Narrator

  Yevgen Borodin, Yuri Puzis, Andrii Soviak, James Bouker, Bo Feng, Richard Sicoli, Andrii Melnyk, Valentyn Melnyk, Vikas Ashok, Glenn Dausch, I.V. Ramakrishnan · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Capti Narrator, a cross-platform text-to-speech application developed by Charmtech Labs that enables hands-free consumption of digital content. Unlike traditional screen readers that are tightly coupled to operating system interfaces, Capti is designed as a…

  text-to-speech · print disability · screen reader · mobile accessibility · universal access

• Investigating the Appropriateness and Relevance of Mobile Web Accessibility Guidelines

  Raphael Clegg-Vinell, Christopher Bailey, Voula Gkatzidou · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from AbilityNet and Brunel University examines whether real accessibility issues found during mobile user testing can be effectively mapped to existing guidelines — specifically WCAG 2.0 and the W3C Mobile Web Best Practices (MWBP) 1.0. Five lab-based mobile testing…

  mobile accessibility · WCAG compliance · accessibility testing · usability testing · accessibility standards

• Accessibility in Context: Understanding the Truly Mobile Experience of Smartphone Users with Motor Impairments

  Maia Naftali, Leah Findlater · 2014 · ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper moves beyond lab-based studies to investigate how people with motor impairments actually use smartphones in their daily lives, particularly outside the home. The research combines two studies: an online survey of 16 smartphone users with motor impairments (conditions…

  motor impairments · mobile accessibility · smartphones · touchscreen · situational impairments

• Motor-Impaired Touchscreen Interactions in the Wild

  Kyle Montague, Hugo Nicolau, Vicki L. Hanson · 2014 · ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper examines how touchscreen interaction performance varies over time for people with motor impairments, moving beyond snapshot lab studies to a four-week in-the-wild evaluation. Nine participants with conditions including Parkinson's disease, essential tremor, spinal…

  motor impairments · touchscreen · mobile accessibility · gesture recognition · Parkinson's disease

• AccessBraille: Tablet-based Braille Entry

  Stephanie Ludi, Michael Timbrook, Piper Chester · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents AccessBraille, an iOS framework that provides a virtual Braille keyboard for iPad applications. The system is designed as a reusable framework that any iOS developer can integrate into their apps, rather than being a standalone application. The…

  braille · tablet · iOS accessibility · text entry · blindness

• Design of and Subjective Response to On-body Input for People with Visual Impairments

  Uran Oh, Leah Findlater · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates on-body input — using the skin as an input surface — as an alternative or complement to touchscreen interaction for people with visual impairments. Since blind users do not need the visual display of a mobile device, on-body input offers potential…

  mobile accessibility · on-body interaction · gesture interaction · blindness · wearable technology

• Where's My Bus Stop? Supporting Independence of Blind Transit Riders with StopInfo

  Megan Campbell, Cynthia Bennett, Caitlin Bonnar, Alan Borning · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents StopInfo, a system integrated into the OneBusAway transit app that provides detailed information about bus stops to help blind and low vision riders locate and verify stops, particularly in unfamiliar areas. Locating a bus stop is a significant challenge for…

  public transit · blind navigation · crowdsourcing · wayfinding · mobile accessibility

• Explorations on Breathing Based Text Input for Mobile Devices

  Jackson F. Filho, Thiago Valle, Wilson Prata · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents progress on PuffText, a breathing-based text input system for mobile phones designed for people with motor disabilities who cannot handle a mobile device manually. The system uses the phone's built-in microphone to detect "puffs" of breath, which serve as the…

  text entry · alternative input · motor disability · sip-and-puff · mobile accessibility

• Designing a Text Entry Multimodal Keypad for Blind Users of Touchscreen Mobile Phones

  Maria Claudia Buzzi, Marina Buzzi, Barbara Leporini, Amaury Trujillo · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents MTITK (Multimodal Text Input Touchscreen Keypad), a software-only text entry system for blind users of touchscreen phones that combines the familiar 12-key telephone keypad layout with multimodal audio-tactile feedback. The work is grounded in the personal…

  mobile accessibility · text entry · blindness · multimodal interaction · haptic feedback

• DigitCHAT: Enabling AAC Input at Conversational Speed

  Karl Wiegand, Rupal Patel · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper presents DigitCHAT, a prototype augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system designed for literate users with mild upper limb motor impairments who need fast, expressive face-to-face communication on mobile phones. The authors identify a gap in existing AAC…

  augmentative and alternative communication · AAC · text entry · mobile accessibility · motor impairments

• BraillePlay: Educational Smartphone Games for Blind Children

  Lauren R. Milne, Cynthia L. Bennett, Richard E. Ladner, Shiri Azenkot · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper presents BraillePlay, a suite of four educational smartphone games designed to teach Braille character encodings to blind children aged 5 and older. The games are built on VBraille, a method for displaying Braille characters on a touchscreen where the phone vibrates…

  blindness · Braille literacy · educational games · children · mobile accessibility

• Path-Guided Indoor Navigation for the Visually Impaired Using Minimal Building Retrofitting

  Dhruv Jain · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper presents the design and evaluation of a cellphone-based indoor navigation system that provides step-by-step path guidance for visually impaired users in unfamiliar buildings with minimal infrastructure requirements. The system combines infrared (IR) beacons mounted at…

  indoor navigation · visual impairment · wayfinding · assistive technology · infrared

• Real-Time Caption Challenge: C-Print

  Michael S. Stinson, Pamela Francis, Lisa B. Elliot, Donna Easton · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '14)

  This demonstration paper presents C-Print, a typing-based real-time captioning system developed over 25 years by researchers at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) at Rochester Institute of Technology. C-Print provides communication access for deaf and hard of…

  deaf and hard of hearing · real-time captioning · communication access · transcription · mobile accessibility

• Move&Flick: Design and Evaluation of a Single-Finger and Eyes-Free Kana-Character Entry Method on Touch Screens

  Ryosuke Aoki, Ryo Hashimoto, Akihiro Miyata, Shunichi Seko, Masahiro Watanabe, Masayuki Ihara · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS '14)

  This demonstration paper presents Move&Flick, a Japanese Kana-character text entry method designed for visually impaired users on touchscreen devices. Standard touchscreen text entry for visually impaired people is burdensome: users must explore the screen to find software keys…

  text entry · touchscreen accessibility · visual impairment · mobile accessibility · gesture interaction

• Dyslexia Exercises on my Tablet are more Fun

  Luz Rello, Clara Bayarri, Azuki Gòrriz · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents Dyseggxia, a free mobile game for iOS and Android designed to help children with dyslexia practice language exercises in an engaging, adaptive format. Dyslexia affects approximately 10% of children worldwide and is characterized by difficulties with accurate…

  dyslexia · serious game · mobile accessibility · adaptive learning · natural language processing

• Adapting data table to improve web accessibility

  Pauli P. Y. Lai · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper addresses the challenge of making web data tables accessible to screen reader users, particularly when tables are not properly marked up with semantic HTML tags like <th>, <thead>, and <tfoot>. Screen readers present content linearly, so large tables become…

  blindness · screen readers · data tables · content adaptation · web accessibility

• A Mobile Interactive Maps Application for a Visually Impaired Audience

  Nikolaos Kaklanis, Konstantinos Votis, Dimitrios Tzovaras · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This demo paper presents "Open Touch/Sound Maps," an Android mobile application that makes interactive maps accessible to visually impaired and blind users through multimodal feedback. Web-based spatial information resources like OpenStreetMap are inherently visual, leaving…

  visual impairment · accessible maps · sonification · haptic feedback · mobile accessibility

• Efficient and Effective Information Finding on Small Screen Devices

  Pauli P. Y. Lai · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper proposes a reverse engineering approach for automatically adapting desktop-oriented webpages for efficient information seeking on small-screen mobile devices. The core contribution is a "semantic-DOM tree" model that analyzes the relationships between semantic…

  mobile accessibility · content adaptation · responsive design · web accessibility · information architecture

• Essential Components of Mobile Web Accessibility

  Shadi Abou-Zahra, Judy Brewer, Shawn Lawton Henry · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  Written by three leaders of the W3C Web Accessibility Initiative, this paper examines how the shift from desktop to mobile and ubiquitous computing affects the interdependent components that together enable web accessibility. The authors outline eight essential components — web…

  mobile accessibility · web standards · WCAG · WAI-ARIA · W3C

• Experiential Transcoding: An EyeTracking Approach

  Yeliz Yesilada, Simon Harper, Sukru Eraslan · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper introduces "experiential transcoding" — a user-centred approach to web page transformation that uses eye-tracking data from sighted users to understand how people actually experience web pages, then uses those patterns to guide transcoding for blind and situationally…

  eye tracking · user experience · transcoding · visual impairment · situational impairment

• A Crowdsourcing Platform for the Construction of Accessibility Maps

  Carlos Cardonha, Diego Gallo, Priscilla Avegliano, Ricardo Herrmann, Fernando Koch, Sergio Borger · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This highly cited paper (69 citations) from IBM Research Brazil presents a comprehensive crowdsourcing platform for constructing outdoor accessibility maps through two complementary data collection approaches. The first, IBM Citizen Sensing, is an active reporting tool where…

  crowdsourcing · accessibility mapping · physical accessibility · urban accessibility · citizen sensing

• Real Time Object Scanning Using a Mobile Phone and Cloud-based Visual Search Engine

  Yu Zhong, Pierre J. Garrigues, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013)

  This paper presents Scan Search, an iPhone application that enables blind users to identify everyday objects in real time by continuously scanning with their phone camera rather than taking individual photos. The core challenge addressed is that blind people struggle with the…

  visual accessibility · object recognition · blind users · mobile accessibility · computer vision

• Answering Visual Questions with Conversational Crowd Assistants

  Walter S. Lasecki, Phyo Thiha, Yu Zhong, Erin Brady, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2013)

  This paper introduces Chorus:View, a system that enables blind users to get visual questions answered through continuous conversational interaction with multiple crowd workers viewing a live video stream from the user's mobile device. The system addresses key limitations of…

  blind and low vision · crowdsourcing · human computation · assistive technology · visual assistance

• Visual Challenges in the Everyday Lives of Blind People

  Erin Brady, Meredith Ringel Morris, Yu Zhong, Samuel White, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2013 · CHI '13: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper presents the findings of a year-long large-scale study of VizWiz Social, an iPhone application that allows blind users to take a photograph, record a spoken question about it, and receive answers from crowd workers or social contacts within about a minute. Between May…

  blind users · crowdsourcing · mobile accessibility · VizWiz · visual question answering

• VBGhost: A Braille-Based Educational Smartphone Game for Children

  Lauren R. Milne, Cynthia L. Bennett, Richard E. Ladner · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '13)

  This short paper presents VBGhost, an accessible educational smartphone game for blind and low vision children that reinforces Braille literacy through gameplay. The game is based on Ghost, a word-building game where players take turns adding letters to a growing word fragment…

  braille · mobile accessibility · game accessibility · blind children · education