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• Sequential Gestural Passcodes on Google Glass

  Abdullah Ali · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This poster paper presents a prototype authentication system using Google Glass to help people with visual impairments access online accounts while protecting against shoulder surfing attacks. The author identifies two intersecting problems: blind users face difficulties…

  blindness · authentication · security · wearable computing · gesture interaction

• ChartMaster: A Tool for Interacting with Stock Market Charts using a Screen Reader

  Hong Zou, Jutta Treviranus · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents ChartMaster, a tool enabling screen reader users to query interactive stock market charts, developed through an inclusive co-design process with visually impaired participants. The authors frame the problem in economic terms: 1.3 billion people with…

  blindness · screen reader · data visualization · financial literacy · inclusive design

• Nonvisual Access to an Interactive Electric Field Simulation: Work in Progress

  Clayton Lewis, Derek Riemer · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This demonstration paper presents work-in-progress on making the PhET Project's Radiating Charge physics simulation accessible to blind users through audio representation. The PhET Project offers over 130 interactive science simulations downloaded more than 75 million times…

  blindness · sonification · STEM education · interactive simulation · inclusive design

• Exploring the Opportunities and Challenges with Exercise Technologies for People who are Blind or Low-Vision

  Kyle Rector, Lauren Milne, Richard E. Ladner, Batya Friedman, Julie A. Kientz · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper employs Value Sensitive Design (VSD) to explore opportunities and challenges for exercise technologies designed for people who are blind or low-vision. People with visual impairments are more likely to be obese, maintain inadequate fitness levels, and exercise less…

  blindness · low vision · exercise · exergames · Value Sensitive Design

• Getting Smartphones to Talkback: Understanding the Smartphone Adoption Process of Blind Users

  André Rodrigues, Kyle Montague, Hugo Nicolau, Tiago Guerreiro · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents an eight-week longitudinal study investigating how novice blind users adopt touchscreen smartphones, transitioning from traditional feature phones. The researchers recruited five legally blind participants (ages 23-55) who had never used a touchscreen…

  blindness · screen readers · mobile accessibility · TalkBack · smartphone adoption

• Faster Text-to-Speeches: Enhancing Blind People's Information Scanning with Faster Concurrent Speech

  João Guerreiro, Daniel Gonçalves · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper investigates how blind users can scan digital information more efficiently by comparing two approaches: increasing speech rate (the traditional method) versus using concurrent speech (multiple simultaneous voices). The research leverages the "Cocktail Party…

  blindness · screen readers · text-to-speech · speech rate · concurrent speech

• A Performance Comparison of On-Hand versus On-Phone Nonvisual Input by Blind and Sighted Users

  Uran Oh, Leah Findlater · 2015 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study investigates whether using one's own hand as an input surface offers performance advantages over touchscreen phones for blind users performing nonvisual interaction. On-body input is particularly attractive for blind users because it provides enhanced tactile and…

  on-body interaction · mobile accessibility · blindness · touchscreen accessibility · gesture input

• Gauging Receptiveness to Social Microvolunteering

  Erin Brady, Meredith Ringel Morris, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper introduces the concept of social microvolunteering — a hybrid of friendsourcing and microvolunteering where volunteers install an application that posts microtasks to their social media feeds, enabling their friends to contribute to causes they care about. The…

  crowdsourcing · microvolunteering · friendsourcing · social media · visual impairment

• ApplianceReader: A Wearable, Crowdsourced, Vision-based System to Make Appliances Accessible

  Anhong Guo, Xiang "Anthony" Chen, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts

  This work-in-progress paper presents ApplianceReader, a wearable system that combines a point-of-view camera (Google Glass) with crowdsourcing and computer vision to make everyday appliance control panels accessible to people with visual impairments. The system addresses a…

  appliance accessibility · crowdsourcing · computer vision · wearable technology · blindness

• Wizard-of-Oz evaluation of speech-driven web browsing interface for people with vision impairments

  Vikas Ashok, Yevgen Borodin, Svetlana Stoyanchev, Yuri Puzis, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a Wizard-of-Oz study with 24 blind participants to evaluate the usability and effectiveness of speech-driven web browsing as an alternative to traditional keyboard-based screen reader interaction. The study was motivated by three key shortcomings of current…

  blindness · screen readers · speech interface · voice interface · web navigation

• JustSpeak: enabling universal voice control on Android

  Yu Zhong, T. V. Raman, Casey Burkhardt, Fadi Biadsy, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper introduces JustSpeak, a universal voice control system for Android that works across all applications without requiring any developer intervention. Unlike Google Now or Siri, which only support pre-defined commands for specific apps, JustSpeak dynamically constructs…

  voice interface · mobile accessibility · blindness · motor accessibility · Android

• Can a Blind Person Understand Your World?

  Chieko Asakawa · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This keynote paper by Chieko Asakawa of IBM Research presents a vision for the next frontier of accessibility for blind people: moving from digital information access to real-world understanding through cognitive computing. Asakawa charts the exponential growth of accessible…

  blindness · cognitive assistance · image recognition · computer vision · machine learning

• Predictive, Accessible Web Automation: A Longitudinal Study

  Yury Puzis, Yevgen Borodin, I.V. Ramakrishnan · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a six-week longitudinal pilot study of Automation Assistant, a predictive web automation system designed to improve non-visual web browsing for blind users. The core problem is that screen readers force users to navigate web pages sequentially — a…

  screen readers · web automation · blindness · non-visual web access · adaptive interfaces

• Haptic 3D Surface Representation of Table-Based Data for People With Visual Impairments

  Jonas Braier, Katharina Lattenkamp, Benjamin Räthel, Sandra Schering, Michael Wojatzki, Benjamin Weyers · 2014 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper introduces "relief charts"—3D surface representations of standard data visualizations (bar graphs, pie charts, scatter plots, radar charts) designed to make complex tabular data accessible to people with visual impairments. The approach is grounded in neuroscientific…

  visual impairment · haptic interfaces · data visualization · inclusive education · 3D printing

• Tactile Graphics with a Voice: Using QR Codes to Access Text in Tactile Graphics

  Catherine M. Baker, Lauren R. Milne, Jeffrey Scofield, Cynthia L. Bennett, Richard E. Ladner · 2014 · ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents Tactile Graphics with a Voice (TGV), a system that makes text labels in tactile graphics accessible by replacing Braille labels with QR codes that can be scanned and read aloud using a smartphone. The motivation is significant: while tactile graphics are…

  visual impairment · blindness · tactile graphics · QR codes · Braille

• Headlock: A Wearable Navigation Aid that Helps Blind Cane Users Traverse Large Open Spaces

  Alexander Fiannaca, Ilias Apostolopoulous, Eelke Folmer · 2014 · ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper presents HEADLOCK, a navigation aid for optical head-mounted displays (OHMDs) like Google Glass that helps blind cane users traverse large open spaces—environments that are particularly challenging because they lack the tactile features (walls, corridors, floor…

  visual impairment · blindness · navigation · wayfinding · wearable technology

• Text-to-Speeches: Evaluating the Perception of Concurrent Speech by Blind People

  João Guerreiro, Daniel Gonçalves · 2014 · ASSETS '14: Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This paper investigates whether blind people can leverage the Cocktail Party Effect—the human ability to focus on one speech source among several while still detecting relevant content in the background—to more efficiently scan digital information. Screen readers present content…

  visual impairment · blindness · screen readers · speech perception · cocktail party effect

• OS-Level Surface Haptics for Touch-Screen Accessibility

  Suhong Jin, Joe Mullenbach, Craig Shultz, J. Edward Colgate, Anne Marie Piper · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demonstration paper introduces an operating system-level implementation of surface haptic feedback for Android tablets, built on the TPad Tablet platform developed at Northwestern University. The TPad combines a standard 7-inch Android tablet with a variable friction haptic…

  haptic feedback · touchscreen accessibility · surface haptics · variable friction · assistive technology

• 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

• Evaluating the Accessibility of Line Graphs through Textual Summaries for Visually Impaired Users

  Priscilla Moraes, Gabriel Sina, Kathleen McCoy, Sandra Carberry · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents the SIGHT (Summarizing Information GrapHics Textually) system, which automatically generates natural language summaries of line graphs found in online popular media articles such as newspapers and magazines. The system addresses a persistent accessibility…

  data visualization · natural language generation · information graphics · blindness · screen readers

• Capti-Speak: A Speech-Enabled Accessible Web Interface

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

  This paper presents Capti-Speak, a speech-augmented screen reader interface for the web that allows blind users to issue voice commands alongside traditional keyboard shortcuts. Built on top of the Capti web browsing application (which provides a JAWS-like screen reader…

  screen readers · speech recognition · voice interface · web accessibility · blindness

• Does It Look Beautiful? Communicating Aesthetic Information about Artwork to the Visually Impaired

  Caroline Marie Galbraith · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper explores how aesthetic information about visual art is communicated to people who are visually impaired, based on observational data from a study where blind individuals and sighted companions explored an art gallery together on the University of Maryland, Baltimore…

  visual art · museum accessibility · blindness · image description · communication

• 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

• Accessible Web Chat Interface

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

  This paper addresses the accessibility of web chat widgets — ubiquitous real-time communication tools embedded in web applications for customer support, social interaction, and service delivery. Screen readers like JAWS, VoiceOver, and NVDA do not reliably recognise widgets that…

  web accessibility · screen readers · dynamic content · ARIA · web widgets

• The Blind Driver Challenge: Steering Using Haptic Cues

  Burkay Sucu, Eelke Folmer · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents a haptic steering interface that enables blind individuals to steer a vehicle on a track using vibrotactile cues, addressing the National Federation of the Blind's 2004 "Blind Driver Challenge." While self-driving vehicles could transform mobility for blind…

  blindness · haptic feedback · mobility · autonomous vehicles · driving