Web Science and Digital Libraries Research Group

  The  ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS)  is the premier venue for research at the intersection of computing and accessibility. It brings together a diverse community of scholars, practitioners, and designers who are dedicated to advancing technologies that empower people with disabilities. This year, the  26th ASSETS Conference (ASSETS 2024)  was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, from October 27 to 30, 2024. In this blog post, I highlight our paper, “ Understanding Low Vision Graphical Perception of Bar Charts ”, which examines how individuals with low vision interpret bar charts using screen magnifiers. Our study found that low-vision users face frequent challenges when reading charts, including visual blur, difficulty tracking between elements, and confusion caused by distractor bars. Perception errors were higher when bars were unaligned, stacked, or closely spaced. In some cases, design choices that typica...

      The  IEEE Visualization Conference (VIS)  is the premier forum for research in visualization and visual analytics. It brings together a global community of scholars, practitioners, and designers committed to advancing visual methods for exploring, analyzing, and communicating data. This year, the 35th IEEE  VIS Conference (VIS 2024)  was held in St. Pete Beach, Florida, USA, from October 13 to 18, 2024. In this blog post, I highlight my work “ Towards Enhancing Low Vision Usability of Data Charts on Smartphones ,” which addresses the accessibility challenges faced by low-vision users when interacting with data charts on mobile devices and introduces GraphLite, a mobile assistive technology that transforms static charts into customizable interactive visualizations. Motivation Data charts are a powerful way to communicate trends, comparisons, and summaries, and they are now commonly found across news articles, financial tools, health dashboards, an...

  Figure 1: A virtual slide from Old Dominion University's GAAD 2025 event highlights "Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD)" during a hybrid session on inclusive design. Celebrating Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) , Old Dominion University Libraries successfully hosted " Accessible by Design: Creating Inclusive PDFs Using Adobe Acrobat" in collaboration with the recently established Employees with Disabilities Association ( EWDA ). Led by Dr. Brett Cook-Snell , this hybrid workshop brought together faculty, staff, and students both in person at Perry Library Room 1306 and online via Zoom for a thorough investigation of digital accessibility that went far beyond technical training to address fundamental questions about inclusion, ableism, and universal design. I attended the session virtually via Zoom, and in this blog post, I will share my firsthand experience and reflections. Since its launch in 2021 (Figure 2), when the first event was planne...

  Figure: One participant shared his shopping experience using his smartphone. (Figure 1 in Liu et al .) Introduction The emergence of online shopping has transformed consumer behavior, providing unmatched convenience. For individuals with visual impairments, it is of paramount importance, offering autonomy and accessibility that conventional shopping frequently lacks. The study 'I Bought This for Me to Look More Ordinary': A Study of Blind People Doing Online Shopping by Guanhong Liu et al. explores the intricate practices, challenges, and aspirations of blind individuals in online shopping. The study published at the CHI 2019 conference underscores how the aspiration to seem " ordinary " profoundly influences shopping behaviors, illustrating a complex interaction among societal perceptions, accessibility obstacles, and individual strategies. This paper is particularly influential in my work as it effectively summarizes the challenges and motivations within this r...