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• 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

• Expression: A Google Glass Based Assistive Solution for Social Signal Processing

  ASM Iftekhar Anam, Shahinur Alam, Mohammed Yeasin · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents Expression, a Google Glass-based assistive system that enables blind and visually impaired users to perceive non-verbal social signals during face-to-face conversations. Limited access to non-verbal cues — facial expressions, gestures, body language — is…

  blindness · wearable technology · facial expression recognition · social interaction · Google Glass

• A Google Glass App to Help the Blind in Small Talk

  Mohammad Iftekhar Tanveer, Mohammed Ehsan Hoque · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents a Google Glass prototype that helps blind individuals initiate small talk by automatically analysing a scene to detect the number of people present, their approximate ages, and gender distribution, then synthesising this information as speech feedback…

  blindness · Google Glass · wearable technology · computer vision · face detection

• New Tools for Automating Tactile Geographic Map Translation

  Nizar Bouhlel, Anis Rojbi · 2014 · Proceedings of the 16th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This demo paper presents a Matlab-based software tool that semi-automates the conversion of visual geographic maps into tactile versions suitable for blind students. Tactile graphics are the most effective modality for blind people to comprehend graphical images, but converting…

  tactile graphics · blindness · braille · image processing · OCR

• 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

• 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

• Using simultaneous audio sources to speed-up blind people's web scanning

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

  This doctoral consortium paper proposes using multiple simultaneous audio sources to help blind users scan web content faster. The core problem is that screen readers present information sequentially — one item at a time — while sighted users can visually scan an entire page at…

  blindness · screen readers · spatial audio · web navigation · auditory perception

• 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

• Towards the Usage of Pauses in Audio-Described Videos

  Benoît Encelle, Magali Ollagnier Beldame, Yannick Prié · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper explores the use of "artificial pauses" — brief interruptions inserted into video playback — as a technique for delivering audio descriptions that cannot fit within the natural gaps in a video's soundtrack. Classical audio description is constrained by the duration of…

  audio description · video accessibility · blindness · visual impairment · multimedia accessibility

• Eyes-Free Yoga: An Exergame Using Depth Cameras for Blind & Low Vision Exercise

  Kyle Rector, Cynthia L. Bennett, Julie A. Kientz · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents Eyes-Free Yoga, an exergame built on the Microsoft Kinect that teaches six yoga poses to people who are blind or low vision using entirely auditory feedback. Research shows that people with visual impairments are more likely to be obese and less physically…

  visual impairment · blindness · exergame · eyes-free interaction · auditory feedback

• Improving Public Transit Accessibility for Blind Riders by Crowdsourcing Bus Stop Landmark Locations with Google Street View

  Kotaro Hara, Shiri Azenkot, Megan Campbell, Cynthia L. Bennett, Vicki Le, Sean Pannella, Robert Moore, Kelly Minckler, Rochelle H. Ng, Jon E. Froehlich · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper introduces Bus Stop CSI (Crowdsourcing Streetview Inspections), a scalable method for collecting bus stop location and landmark descriptions by combining online crowdsourcing with Google Street View (GSV). Blind and low-vision bus riders rely heavily on physical…

  visual impairment · blindness · crowdsourcing · public transit · navigation

• Uncovering Information Needs for Independent Spatial Learning for Users Who Are Visually Impaired

  Nikola Banovic, Rachel L. Franz, Khai N. Truong, Jennifer Mankoff, Anind K. Dey · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents two studies examining how visually impaired individuals learn about their environments and build cognitive maps — the mental representations of spatial relationships that sighted people largely construct through casual visual observation. Study 1 involved…

  visual impairment · spatial learning · navigation · wayfinding · orientation and mobility

• Exploring the Use of Speech Input by Blind People on Mobile Devices

  Shiri Azenkot, Nicole B. Lee · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates how blind people use speech input on mobile devices through two studies: a survey of 169 participants (64 blind/low-vision, 105 sighted) and a laboratory study with 8 blind participants composing paragraphs on an iPod Touch using speech dictation versus…

  visual impairment · blindness · speech input · speech recognition · mobile accessibility

• "Pray Before You Step Out": Describing Personal and Situational Blind Navigation Behaviors

  Michele A. Williams, Amy Hurst, Shaun K. Kane · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper presents a formative study exploring how 30 adults with vision impairments use technology and personal strategies to navigate both indoor and outdoor environments. Rather than introducing new navigation technology, the research aims to build a richer understanding of…

  visual impairment · blindness · navigation · orientation and mobility · wayfinding

• Interviewing Blind Photographers: Design Insights for a Smartphone Application

  Dustin Adams, Tory Gallagher, Alexander Ambard, Sri Kurniawan · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This short paper reports on interviews with 11 people with limited to no vision who take digital photographs independently, investigating how they take, store, organize, and share their photos. While prior research had addressed camera aiming assistance for blind photographers…

  visual impairment · blindness · photography · photo sharing · smartphone applications

• Bypassing Lists: Accelerating Screen-Reader Fact-Finding with Guided Tours

  Tao Yang, Prathik Gadde, Robert Morse, Davide Bolchini · 2013 · Proceedings of the 15th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates whether guided tours — a navigation pattern that linearly links content pages with next/previous controls — can help screen-reader users perform fact-finding tasks more efficiently than traditional index-based navigation, particularly when the index lacks…

  screen reader · web navigation · blindness · visual impairment · information scent

• Exploration and Avoidance of Surrounding Obstacles for the Visually Impaired

  Limin Zeng, Denise Prescher, Gerhard Weber · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This paper presents the 3DOD (3D Obstacle Detector), a wearable system that combines a 3D Time-of-Flight (TOF) camera with a portable multi-line refreshable Braille display to help blind pedestrians detect and avoid obstacles beyond the reach of a white cane. White canes detect…

  blindness · obstacle detection · electronic travel aid · haptic feedback · tactile display

• Tapulator: A Non-Visual Calculator Using Natural Prefix-Free Codes

  Vaspol Ruamviboonsuk, Shiri Azenkot, Richard E. Ladner · 2012 · Proceedings of the 14th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2012)

  This demonstration paper presents the Tapulator, a non-visual calculator for smartphones that replaces traditional on-screen buttons with a simple gesture-based numeric entry system using multi-finger taps and swipes. The core innovation is a natural prefix-free code for…

  blindness · low vision · touchscreen accessibility · screen reader · gesture input

• Improving accessibility to mathematical formulas: the Wikipedia math accessor

  Leo Ferres, Jose Fuentes Sepúlveda · 2011 · Proceedings of the International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper presents MathAcc, an assistive technology system that generates natural language descriptions in Spanish for the more than 355,000 mathematical formulas found across 26,174 Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia renders formulas as rasterised PNG images of LaTeX expressions,…

  mathematical accessibility · blindness · natural language generation · MathML · Wikipedia

• Spindex (Speech Index) Improves Auditory Menu Acceptance and Navigation Performance

  Myounghoon Jeon, Bruce N. Walker · 2011 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper introduces the "spindex" (speech index), a novel auditory cue designed to improve navigation through spoken menus on mobile devices. The spindex works by pronouncing the first letter of each menu item before the full text-to-speech (TTS) rendering—analogous to the…

  auditory interfaces · mobile accessibility · text-to-speech · screen readers · user interface design

• An Integrated System for Blind Day-to-Day Life Autonomy

  Hugo Fernandes, José Faria, Hugo Paredes, João Barroso · 2011 · Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This demonstration paper presents nav4b, an integrated system designed to support the day-to-day autonomy of blind people by combining indoor/outdoor navigation guidance with object recognition in a single platform. Unlike existing solutions that require users to carry multiple…

  blindness · navigation · RFID · object recognition · white cane

• Automatically Generating Tailored Accessible User Interfaces for Ubiquitous Services

  Julio Abascal, Amaia Aizpurua, Idoia Cearreta, Borja Gamecho, Nestor Garay-Vitoria, Raúl Miñón · 2011 · Proceedings of the 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2011)

  This paper presents EGOKI, a system that automatically generates tailored accessible user interfaces for ubiquitous services based on individual user capabilities. In ubiquitous computing environments, people access services like information kiosks, ticket machines, ATMs, and…

  adaptive interfaces · automatic interface generation · ubiquitous computing · ambient assisted living · user modeling