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• Lost in Translation: Understanding Autistic-Neurotypical Communication Style Differences in Job Postings

  Huining Feng, Zinat Ara, Andrew Hundt, Slobodan Vucetic, John Joon Young Chung, Sungsoo Ray Hong · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper investigates a concrete and consequential site of autistic-neurotypical (NT) communication mismatch: the written job posting. Autistic adults face an approximately 85% unemployment or underemployment rate (compared to 4% in the general US population), and…

  autism · autistic communication · communication style differences · autistic employment · double empathy problem

• Design and Evaluation of an Automatic Text Simplification Prototype with Deaf and Hard-of-hearing Readers

  Oliver Alonzo, Sooyeon Lee, Akhter Al Amin, Mounica Maddela, Wei Xu, Matt Huenerfauth · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates the design preferences and interactions of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) readers with automatic text simplification (ATS) tools. Many DHH individuals who use sign language as their primary language experience English as a second language with different…

  deaf and hard of hearing · text simplification · reading accessibility · natural language processing · lexical simplification

• In-Page Navigation Aids for Screen-Reader Users with Automatic Topicalisation and Labelling

  Jorge Sassaki Resende Silva, Paula Christina Figueira Cardoso, Raphael Winckler De Bettio, Daniela Cardoso Tavares, Carlos Alberto Silva, Willian Massami Watanabe, Andre Pimenta Freire · 2024 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper addresses a fundamental challenge for screen reader users: navigating lengthy web documents that lack proper heading structure. When web pages do not include semantic headings or internal navigation links, users must read content linearly, which increases cognitive…

  screen readers · navigation · natural language processing · topic segmentation · large language models

• A More Accessible Web with Natural Language Interface

  Xiang Deng · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract proposes building a general natural language interface (NLI) for the Web that would allow users to express their needs in plain language and have the system automatically carry out the required actions on any website. The approach aims to reduce the…

  natural language processing · web accessibility · web automation · semantic parsing · large language models

• Modeling Word Importance in Conversational Transcripts: Toward improved live captioning for Deaf and hard of hearing viewers

  Akhter Al Amin, Saad Hassan, Matt Huenerfauth, Cecilia O. Alm · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates how to model word importance in conversational transcripts to improve live captioning quality for Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) viewers. Live captions generated by automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems inevitably contain errors, but not all errors…

  live captioning · deaf and hard of hearing · automatic speech recognition · word importance · natural language processing

• Understanding and Improving Drilled-Down Information Extraction from Online Data Visualizations for Screen-Reader Users

  Ather Sharif, Olivia H. Wang, Alida T. Muongchan, Katharina Reinecke, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This full research paper presents a comprehensive investigation into how screen-reader users (SRUs) extract drilled-down information from online data visualizations, and how the VoxLens tool can be improved to support this process. While prior work on VoxLens focused on holistic…

  screen readers · data visualization · voice interface · information extraction · natural language processing

• When Headers Are Not There: Design and User Evaluation of an Automatic Topicalisation and Labelling Tool to Aid the Exploration of Web Documents by Blind Users

  Jorge Sassaki Resende Silva, André Pimenta Freire, Paula Christina Figueira Cardoso · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2022)

  This paper addresses a fundamental problem for blind screen reader users: what happens when web documents lack proper heading markup, eliminating one of the primary navigation strategies available to them. The researchers designed and evaluated a tool that uses Natural Language…

  screen readers · headings · natural language processing · text segmentation · blind users

• AIDE: Automatic and Accessible Image Descriptions for Review Imagery in Online Retail

  Rachana Sreedhar, Nicole Tan, Jingyue Zhang, Kim Jin, Spencer Gregson, Eli Moreta-Feliz, Niveditha Samudrala, Shrenik Sadalgi · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from the Wayfair Next team presents AIDE (Automatic Image Description Engine), a multi-modal system that automatically generates alt-text for user-submitted review photos on e-commerce sites. While product images on retail sites sometimes have alt-text, customer…

  alternative text · image description · online shopping · blindness and low vision · computer vision

• A Dataset of Alt Texts from HCI Publications: Analyses and Uses Towards Producing More Descriptive Alt Texts of Data Visualizations in Scientific Papers

  Sanjana Shivani Chintalapati, Jonathan Bragg, Lucy Lu Wang · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper examines the quality and availability of alt text for data visualizations in scientific publications, focusing on papers from the HCI and accessibility communities (CHI and ASSETS conferences, 2010-2020). The authors processed over 25,000 paper PDFs and found that…

  alt text · data visualization · scientific documents · blind and low vision · document accessibility

• AIDE: An Automatic Image Description Engine for Review Imagery

  Rachana Sreedhar, Nicole Tan, Jingyue Zhang, Kim Jin, Spencer Gregson, Eli Moreta-Feliz, Niveditha Samudrala, Shrenik Sadalgi · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from Wayfair presents AIDE, a multimodal machine learning system that automatically generates contextual alt-text for user-submitted review images in e-commerce — a category of imagery that is particularly inaccessible because it is user-generated, unpredictable in…

  alt text · computer vision · blindness · visual impairment · screen readers

• Reading-Assistance Tools Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Computing Professionals in the U.S.: Their Reading Experiences, Interests and Perceptions of Social Accessibility

  Oliver Alonzo, Lisa Elliot, Becca Dingman, Sooyeon Lee, Akhter Al Amin, Matt Huenerfauth · 2022 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This research investigates the reading experiences, needs, and interests of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) computing professionals in Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) tools—software that automatically rewrites complex text to make it easier to read. The study addresses a gap…

  deaf · hard of hearing · DHH · automatic text simplification · reading assistance

• Methods for Evaluating the Fluency of Automatically Simplified Texts with Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults at Various Literacy Levels

  Oliver Alonzo, Jessica Trussell, Matthew Watkins, Sooyeon Lee, Matt Huenerfauth · 2022 · Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '22)

  This CHI 2022 paper is a methodological study, not a product evaluation: the authors ask how researchers should measure the fluency of Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) output when the evaluators are Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) adults spanning a wide range of English…

  automatic text simplification · deaf and hard of hearing · readability · reading accessibility · natural language processing

• Fluent: An AI Augmented Writing Tool for People who Stutter

  Bhavya Ghai, Klaus Mueller · 2021 · The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2021)

  This paper presents Fluent, a novel AI-powered writing tool designed to help people who stutter (PWS) prepare scripts and written content that they can deliver more fluently. Over 70 million people worldwide stutter, and a common coping strategy is word substitution — replacing…

  stuttering · speech disorders · machine learning · active learning · natural language processing

• Comparison of Methods for Evaluating Complexity of Simplified Texts among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Adults at Different Literacy Levels

  Oliver Alonzo, Jessica Trussell, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth · 2021 · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '21)

  This CHI 2021 paper is the companion methodological study to Alonzo et al.'s 2022 fluency work: where that later paper asked how to evaluate the fluency (grammaticality) of simplified texts, this one asks how to evaluate their complexity (whether the simplification actually made…

  automatic text simplification · deaf and hard of hearing · readability · reading accessibility · research methodology

• Reading Experiences and Interest in Reading-Assistance Tools Among Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Computing Professionals

  Oliver Alonzo, Lisa Elliot, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This study investigates whether Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) computing professionals are interested in Automatic Text Simplification (ATS) tools to assist with reading in their professional work. ATS software rewrites text to improve readability using lexical simplification…

  deaf and hard of hearing · automatic text simplification · reading accessibility · natural language processing · assistive technology

• Empirical Investigation of Users' Preferred Timing Parameters for American Sign Language Animations

  Sedeeq Al-khazraji, Becca Dingman, Matt Huenerfauth · 2020 · Extended Abstracts of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '20)

  This CHI 2020 Late-Breaking Work (7 pages) investigates a narrow but consequential HCI question: what timing values should be used when generating American Sign Language (ASL) animations from a script, so that Deaf viewers find them comfortable to watch? ASL is a primary…

  american sign language · sign language animation · signing avatar · deaf and hard of hearing · web accessibility

• Combining Semantic Tools for Automatic Evaluation of Alternative Texts

  Carlos Duarte, Carlos M. Duarte, Luís Carriço · 2019 · Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents SCREW v2, an updated algorithm for automatically assessing the quality of alternative texts for images on web pages from an accessibility perspective. The work is motivated by the EU Directive 2016/2102, which requires monitoring the accessibility of public…

  alternative text · automated accessibility testing · image accessibility · semantic analysis · computer vision

• Evaluating the Benefit of Highlighting Key Words in Captions for People who are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

  Sushant Kafle, Peter Yeung, Matt Huenerfauth · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)

  This paper investigates whether visually highlighting important words in video captions benefits Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) users, through formative studies and a larger evaluation study. DHH users face a unique visual-attention challenge when watching captioned video: they…

  Deaf and hard of hearing · captioning · text highlighting · educational accessibility · video accessibility

• Sign Language Recognition, Generation, and Translation: An Interdisciplinary Perspective

  Danielle Bragg, Oscar Koller, Mary Bellard, Larwan Berke, Patrick Boudreault, Annelies Braffort, Naomi Caselli, Matt Huenerfauth, Hernisa Kacorri, Tessa Verhoef, Christian Vogler, Meredith Ringel Morris · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary overview of sign language processing — encompassing recognition, generation, and translation — produced through a two-day workshop bringing together 39 experts from computer science, linguistics, Deaf studies, and industry.…

  sign language · Deaf culture · computer vision · natural language processing · machine translation

• ScratchThat: Supporting Command-Agnostic Speech Repair in Voice-Driven Assistants

  Jason Wu, Karan Ahuja, Richard Li, Victor Chen, Jeffrey Bigham · 2019 · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies

  This paper presents ScratchThat, a command-agnostic speech repair system for voice-driven virtual assistants that allows users to naturally correct voice commands without repeating entire queries. Current voice assistants like Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri lack natural…

  voice interface · speech recognition · conversational agents · error correction · natural language processing

• Automatic Natural Language Generation Applied to Alternative and Augmentative Communication for Online Video Content Services using SimpleNLG for Spanish

  Silvia García-Méndez, Milagros Fernández-Gavilanes, Enrique Costa-Montenegro, Jonathan Juncal-Martínez, Francisco Javier González-Castaño · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This short paper presents the development of a Spanish version of SimpleNLG — a natural language generation (NLG) library — specifically enhanced for Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) applications. The work addresses a gap at the intersection of AAC and online…

  AAC · natural language processing · pictograms · Spanish · natural language generation

• Semantic Content Analysis Supporting Web Accessibility Evaluation

  Carlos Duarte, Inês Matos, Luís Carriço · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses a fundamental limitation of automated web accessibility evaluation tools: their inability to assess whether text alternatives actually describe the content they refer to. While tools can detect the presence of an alt attribute on an image, they cannot judge…

  automated testing · alternative text · semantic analysis · machine learning · image recognition

• Modeling the Speed and Timing of American Sign Language to Generate Realistic Animations

  Sedeeq Al-khazraji, Larwan Berke, Sushant Kafle, Peter Yeung, Matt Huenerfauth · 2018 · Proceedings of the 20th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '18)

  This paper addresses the challenge of generating realistic computer animations of American Sign Language (ASL) by automatically modeling three critical timing parameters: where prosodic pauses should be inserted, how long those pauses should last, and how the signing speed of…

  sign language · ASL · animation · machine learning · Deaf accessibility

• Usability Evaluation of Captions for People Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing

  Sushant Kafle, Matt Huenerfauth · 2018 · SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing Newsletter (Issue 122)

  This is a SIGACCESS Newsletter article summarizing a line of research by Kafle and Huenerfauth on building a caption-quality evaluation metric that actually reflects the experience of Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) readers — rather than simply counting speech-recognition errors.…

  automatic speech recognition · captioning · captions · caption quality · accessibility metrics

• Able to Read My Mail: An Accessible e-Mail Client with Assistive Technology

  Horacio Saggion, Daniel Ferrés, Leen Sevens, Ineke Schuurman, Marta Ripollés, Olga Rodríguez · 2017 · Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents Kolumba, an accessible web-based email client developed as part of the EU-funded Able to Include project, specifically designed for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD). The tool addresses a critical gap in workplace digital inclusion:…

  intellectual disability · cognitive accessibility · text simplification · pictograph communication · workplace accessibility