To elaborate, assistive technology tend to necessitate rich and open representations to capture authorial intent that can be interacted with in multimodal ways. HTML is the canonical example. For example, every application having to manually script with a screen reader doesn't scale.
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The intersection between accessibility technology and malleable software seems under explored.
May 15, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Digital accessibility is real and tangible
A workshop using real-life examples and first-hand experience of how assistive technology works can result in a deeper understanding of accessibility needs
A Deep Dive into Accessibility APIs, Part 1 — Knowbility
In this first Deep Dive into Accessibility APIs installment, we'll start from absolute scratch and recount the widely available basic story. It's written for beginners, but the fact that I describe web accessibility in the broader context of software accessibility might offer a different twist for current practitioners as well. Parts 2 and 3, on the other hand, are more technical. Although those discussions may largely be of interest only to "inquiring minds that want to know", understanding the history and variety of the specialized protocols at the heart of this process sheds light on why screen readers sometimes perform differently in the same application or on the same web site while also providing a glimpse of a likely future.
Your Browser May Be Having a Secret Relationship with a Screen Reader: A Deep Dive into Accessibility APIs, Part 3 — Knowbility
The final installment of the three-part saga on the technical details of how screen readers communicate with other software.
Ubiquitous Accessibility for People with Visual Impairments: Are We There Yet?
Ubiquitous access is an increasingly common vision of computing, wherein users can interact with any computing device or service from anywhere, at any time. In the era of personal computing, users with visual impairments required special-purpose, assistive technologies, such as screen readers, to interact with computers. This paper investigates whether technologies like screen readers have kept pace with, or have created a barrier to, the trend toward ubiquitous access, with a specific focus on desktop computing as this is still the primary way computers are used in education and employment. Towards that, the paper presents a user study with 21 visually-impaired participants, specifically involving the switching of screen readers within and across different computing platforms, and the use of screen readers in remote access scenarios. Among the findings, the study shows that, even for remote desktop access—an early forerunner of true ubiquitous access—screen readers are too limited, if not unusable. The study also identifies several accessibility needs, such as uniformity of navigational experience across devices, and recommends potential solutions. In summary, assistive technologies have not made the jump into the era of ubiquitous access, and multiple, inconsistent screen readers create new practical problems for users with visual impairments.
The Road to Good Intentions Is Paved with Hell: A Deep Dive into Accessibility APIs, Part 2 — Knowbility
This post is the second in a three-part series about how screen readers obtain what users need from applications and operating systems.
Direct manipulation vs. interface agents
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Instrumental interaction: an interaction model for designing post-WIMP user interfaces
Although the power of personal computers has increased 1000-fold over the past 20 years, user interfaces remain essentially the same. Innovations in HCI research, particularly novel interaction techniques, are rarely incorporated into products. In this ...
(PDF) Smart glasses for remote assistance: analysing usability and optimal user characteristics among young adults with and without autism
PDF | Purpose: Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often face challenges achieving independence and require ongoing support from... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate
Instrumental interaction: an interaction model for designing post-WIMP user interfaces
As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.
Instrumental interaction: an interaction model for designing post-WIMP user interfaces
As part of the Digital Library's transition to Open Access, new features for researchers are available in the Premium Edition. Click here to learn more.
Usability/UX/Accessability Research? · Issue #819 · w3c-fedid/FedCM
I'm curious if this work has any usability, UX, or accessibility research that supports the designs here? Are there non-goals, or handling of failure case scenarios that have been envisioned an...
Substrates via Accessibility
The social model of disability holds that disability is produced by environments, not by bodies — that when software fails to accommodate a person’s needs, the environment is disabling them. We argue that the dominant organization of computing produces such interaction mismatches structurally: the commodity form of software requires a standardized consumer, and everyone whose needs diverge from this imagined subject is disabled by the software environment. The substrates research community has identified properties — disclosure, composability, malleability — that would address this, but the commodity form actively selects against these properties because they dissolve the boundaries on which exchange value depends. This raises a question: how can infrastructure organized against the grain of commodity logic be made durable? We find a precedent in accessibility infrastructure — sustained not by patronage but by the organized counter-power of disability rights movements. Through Allio, a system for cross-application augmentation built on accessibility APIs, we illustrate both what this foundation makes possible and where its limits lie. We argue that the accessibility case reframes the substrates programme’s central challenge as political-economic: the question of who sustains substrate infrastructure, and through what social mechanisms, is as important as the question of what properties it should have.
Cursor on web and mobile · Cursor
Work with a powerful coding assistant anywhere with the Cursor Agent on web and mobile.
Smart glasses for remote assistance: analysing usability and optimal user characteristics among young adults with and without autism
Young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often face challenges achieving independence and require ongoing support from caregivers. Smart glasses can develop skills and provide remote suppor...
brief history of browser accessibility support
Author: steve faulkner The Paciello Group contact: [email protected]
Rethinking the human-readability infrastructure
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