SIGACCESS

Welcome to the October 2015 issue of the SIGACCESS newsletter. In the first article Anke Brock and Christophe Jouffrais give an overview of their research on making geographic maps accessible to visually impaired users. They developed an accessible interactive map prototype composed of a raised-line overlay, an interactive tabletop, and speech output. Their work is currently being used in some classrooms in France for teaching geography to visually impaired children. In the following article, Kotaro Hara and Jon Froehlich talk about their research work aimed at developing scalable data collection methods for remotely acquiring street-level accessibility information and novel mobile navigation and map tools. Finally, Tiago Guerreiro writes an article about the shortcomings of current mobile devices, particularly in the social domain. He then presents his on-going research in areas such as security and privacy, inconspicuous interaction, and social context awareness.

Welcome to the June 2015 issue of the SIGACCESS newsletter. In the first article, Eelke Folmer presents an innovative project that aims to use unmanned aerial robots to guide blind runners on a track. He describes a prototype and identifies some of the research challenges his lab is trying to tackle. In the next article and following his Best Paper Award at ASSETS’14, Charles Fage writes an article about his work with children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. We reports on a 3-month pilot study with 10 children in mainstreamed schools. In the third and last article, Erin Brady investigates the use of a human-powered access tool that connects people with visual impairments to sighted workers who can answer their visual questions.

Welcome to the January issue of the SIGACCESS newsletter. This issue highlights the ACM ASSETS 2014 Conference. The first article written by the General and Program chairs, Sri Kurniawan and John Richards, respectively, provides an overview of the conference. The following 9 articles describe the research work of the students who attended the ASSETS 2014 Doctoral Consortium led by Jinjuan Feng and Claude Chapdelaine.