Approaches for diagrams accessibility for blind people: a systematic review

This research category full paper brings a landscape of the primary studies which aim to turn diagrams accessible for blind people. There are a considerable number of people with visual impairments. However, was noticed poor accessibility features in tools to work with diagrams, which are typically used to present concepts and structured data, especially for courses in STEM fields. Thus, this systematic literature review gathered the studies about this matter in the last six years, to reveal the approaches being used to make diagrams accessible for blind people, checking, in addition to perception, if interaction and collaboration have been considered. The initial search and screening resulted in 369 studies, out of which 26 were selected for the final analysis. The results presented the preponderance of the auditory approach followed by refreshable Braille displays to achieve perception. Concerning interaction, the keyboard was the main input interface, whereas four out of nine studies found considered it. From the four studies which treated the possibility of simultaneous users working on the diagrammatic representation, only one considered distributed collaboration. Finally, the conclusion is that may there is a research gap in the collaboration, which could guide further developments.