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• End-to-End Solution for Accessible Chemical Diagrams

  Volker Sorge, Mark Lee, Sandy Wilkinson · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a complete pipeline for making chemical diagrams — typically distributed as inaccessible bitmap images — fully accessible on the web. The system takes bitmap images of molecular diagrams as input and produces interactive, explorable SVG diagrams with semantic…

  STEM accessibility · image accessibility · visual impairment · screen readers · SVG

• Optimus Web: Selective Delivery of Desktop or Mobile Web Pages

  Nádia Fernandes, Tiago Guerreiro, Diogo Marques, Luís Carriço · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Optimus Web, a client-side web proxy system that automatically selects and delivers the most accessible version of a website — either its desktop or mobile representation — to blind users. The system uses QualWeb, an automated accessibility evaluator that…

  web accessibility · blind users · screen readers · mobile accessibility · automated testing

• Affordable Web Accessibility: A Case for Cheaper ARIA

  Yury Puzis, Yevgen Borodin, Andrii Soviak, Valentyn Melnyk, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper argues that the primary barrier to web accessibility is not technical limitations but the high cost of implementing WAI-ARIA, the W3C accessibility specification for rich internet applications. The authors systematically analyze why ARIA implementation is expensive by…

  WAI-ARIA · web accessibility · screen readers · web development · accessibility economics

• Look Ma, No ARIA: Generic Accessible Interfaces for Web Widgets

  Valentyn Melnyk, Vikas Ashok, Yury Puzis, Yevgen Borodin, Andrii Soviak, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper proposes an alternative approach to web widget accessibility that bypasses ARIA entirely. Rather than relying on web developers to correctly implement ARIA markup — which is often missing, incorrect, or inconsistent — the system automatically detects, classifies, and…

  widget accessibility · screen readers · WAI-ARIA · machine learning · web chat

• Capti-Speak: A Speech-Enabled Web Screen Reader

  Vikas Ashok, Yevgen Borodin, Yury Puzis, I. V. Ramakrishnan · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Capti-Speak, a speech-augmented screen reader for web browsing that allows blind users to combine natural language voice commands with traditional keyboard shortcuts. Built as an extension to the Capti Narrator screen reader, Capti-Speak addresses a…

  screen readers · speech recognition · voice interface · web accessibility · blind users

• SmartWrap: Seeing Datasets with the Crowd's Eyes

  Steven Gardiner, Anthony Tomasic, John Zimmerman · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2015)

  This paper presents SmartWrap, a Firefox extension that enables sighted web users — including nonprogrammers — to create reusable "wrappers" that extract the semantic structure of visually-presented datasets on web pages, making them navigable by screen readers. The core problem…

  crowdsourcing · screen readers · web accessibility · semantic annotation · web scraping

• Social Media Platforms for Low-Income Blind People in India

  Aditya Vashistha, Edward Cutrell, Nicola Dell, Richard Anderson · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This groundbreaking study provides the first analysis of social media use and non-use by low-income blind people in rural and peri-urban India—a population largely absent from accessibility research despite India having the world's largest blind population (63+ million). The…

  blindness · social media · low-income · India · Global South

• EnTable: Rewriting Web Data Sets as Accessible Tables

  Steven Gardiner, Anthony Tomasic, John Zimmerman · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This demonstration paper presents EnTable, a crowdsourcing system that transforms visually complex web data presentations into accessible HTML tables. The problem it addresses is fundamental: modern web designers communicate semantic information through sophisticated CSS and…

  web accessibility · crowdsourcing · screen readers · data tables · transcoding

• READ: A (Research) Platform for Evaluating Non-visual Access Methods to Digital Documents

  Laurent Sorin, Julie Lemarié, Mustapha Mojahid · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  READ (Documents Architecture REstitution) is a configurable research platform for evaluating alternative methods of non-visual access to digital documents. The system addresses a well-documented problem: despite extensive functionality, screen readers remain frustrating and…

  document accessibility · research platform · non-visual access · screen readers · text-to-speech

• The Invisible Work of Accessibility: How Blind Employees Manage Accessibility in Mixed-Ability Workplaces

  Stacy M. Branham, Shaun K. Kane · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  This qualitative field study examines how blind employees navigate accessibility in shared office environments where they work alongside sighted colleagues. The researchers conducted a multi-session study with five blind office workers (ages 25-54) across different…

  blindness · workplace accessibility · assistive technology · screen readers · employment

• 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

• Towards Making Mathematics a First Class Citizen in General Screen Readers

  Volker Sorge, Charles Chen, T. V. Raman, David Tseng · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a comprehensive approach to integrating mathematical speech translation into ChromeVox, Google's open-source screen reader for the Chrome browser and Chrome OS. The authors address the fundamental challenge that mathematical notation on the web exists in…

  screen readers · mathematics accessibility · MathML · ChromeVox · text-to-speech

• Are Users the Gold Standard for Accessibility Evaluation?

  Amaia Aizpurua, Myriam Arrue, Simon Harper, Markel Vigo · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper critically examines whether user testing with blind users is a reliable "gold standard" for web accessibility evaluation. Drawing on an exploratory study with 11 legally blind participants (10 JAWS users, 1 VoiceOver user, ages 21-64) who navigated four restaurant…

  user testing · accessibility evaluation · blind users · screen readers · research methodology

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• 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

• Building Keyboard Accessible Drag and Drop

  Rucha Somani, Jiahang Xin, Bijay Bhaskar Deo, Yun Huang · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents an API that enables web developers to create keyboard-accessible drag and drop (DnD) components for web applications, particularly e-learning systems. Drag and drop interactions are widely used in educational websites for classification exercises (e.g.,…

  keyboard accessibility · drag and drop · web accessibility · e-learning · screen readers

• From Screen Reading to Aural Glancing: Towards Instant Access to Key Page Sections

  Prathik Gadde, Davide Bolchini · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS 2014)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem in screen reader navigation: while sighted users can glance at a web page to instantly understand its structure and locate relevant sections, screen reader users are forced to listen to content serially, making navigation of complex…

  screen readers · web navigation · blindness · visual impairment · e-commerce accessibility

• Tracking @stemxcomet: Teaching Programming to Blind Students via 3D Printing, Crisis Management, and Twitter

  Shaun K. Kane, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2014 · ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education

  This paper describes the design and execution of a four-day programming workshop for blind and visually impaired high school students, conducted as part of the National Federation of the Blind's STEM-X summer science camp. Nine students (grades 8-12) learned Ruby programming…

  accessible programming · computer science education · blindness · visual impairment · 3D printing

• Pushing the Raman principle

  Clayton Lewis · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper explores the implications of what the author calls the "Raman Principle," attributed to T.V. Raman: "The way to think about the visual system is as a way to answer queries against a spatial database. If you have an alternate way to ask the queries and get the answers,…

  visual programming · blindness · non-visual interaction · screen readers · programming accessibility