Track on Accessible Devices and Technologies (ADT ‘26)
Thessaloniki, Greece, March 23 - 27, 2026
Part of the 41st ACM/SIGAPP Symposium on Applied Computing (SAC ‘26)
https://unipd.link/ADT-2026
https://www.sigapp.org/sac/sac2026/
Theme and Scope
Modern devices and technologies can represent a digital barrier for users with
disabilities, but they can be exploited to become enabling tools for them. Accessibility
of devices and technologies is a critical topic to allow inclusion of all users,
especially due to the European laws that impose accessibility for new products and the
definition of an updated version of WCAG (Web Accessibility Guidelines). This track
invites scientists, engineers, and decision-makers from government, industry, and academia
to present technical papers on their research and development results in areas of
accessibility.
This track can interest many researchers since it would give the chance to face a wide
range of topics, i.e., web or mobile technologies, with different points of view, taking
into account specific technological constraints and digital barriers. It is well-known
that the so-called “curb cut effect” can be applied to any technological and digital
context (in terms of devices, content, and services): technologies that were originally
meant to benefit people with disabilities can help any other users. Moreover, the history
and the evolution of several technologies have been influenced and/or motivated by the
special needs of people with disabilities.
This track will invite scientists, engineers, and decision-makers from government,
industry, and academia to present technical papers on their research and development
results in areas of accessibility, including but not limited to the following topics:
Accessible devices/assistive technologies: assistive technologies refer to all the
assistive, adaptive, and rehabilitative devices for people with disabilities that enable
users to perform tasks they were formerly unable to accomplish. On the one hand, the
widespread diffusion of new devices and technologies stimulates researchers to find and
apply new solutions to make them accessible to anyone. On the other hand, experiences in
accessibility-related fields have been exploited and have provided benefits to users
equipped with non-conventional devices when they emerged in the market.
Accessible solutions for e-learning, e-commerce, e-banking, etc: e-services and content
often require specific technologies, being bounded by specific constraints when accessed
by people with disabilities equipped with assistive technologies. Specific interaction
modalities may affect interactive service access, while richness and quantity of content
may affect the users’ ability to process information.
Accessible content: e-books, accessible TV, accessible broadcasting, etc.
Accessibility of games.
AI for Accessibility: AI can be exploited both for personalization (i.e., integrating
AI-based personalization to support specific and special needs) and “enabler” (i.e.,
exploiting LLM to support the creation of accessible applications).
Submission Guidelines
We would like to invite authors to submit papers on research on the Accessibility area,
with particular emphasis on assessing the current state of the art and identifying future
directions. Original papers addressing any of the listed topics of interest (or related
topics) will be considered. Each submitted paper will be fully refereed and undergo a
double-blind review process by at least three referees. Accepted papers will be included
in the ACM SAC 2026 proceedings and published in the ACM digital library, being indexed by
Thomson ISI Web of Knowledge and Scopus. Submissions fall into the following categories:
Original and unpublished research work;
Reports of innovative computing applications in the arts, sciences, engineering, and
business area;
Reports of successful technology transfer to new problem domains;
Reports of industrial experience and demos of new innovative systems.
The track accepts full papers (max 8 pages), posters (max 2 pages), and SRC abstracts (max
2 pages). Submissions should be properly anonymized to facilitate blind reviewing. Papers
that will recevie high reviews (that is acceptable by reviewer standard) but will not be
accepted due to space limitations can be invited for poster session. Authors of accepted
papers must be prepared to sign a copyright statement and must pay the registration fee
and guarantee that their paper will be presented at the conference. No-show of scheduled
papers will result in excluding the papers from the ACM Digital Library.
See the track website
https://unipd.link/ADT-2026 for more details.
Important Dates
September 26, 2025 (EST): Submission of regular papers and SRC research abstracts
October 31, 2025: Notification of papers, posters, and SRC research abstracts
December 5, 2025: Camera-ready copies of accepted papers/SRC
December 12, 2025: Authors registration due
Organization
Ombretta Gaggi, University of Padua
Silvia Mirri, University of Bologna
Mike Paciello, AudioEye, WebABLE
Catia Prandi, University of Bologna
Submission Portal
Please submit your contribution through our online submission portal available at
https://easychair.org/account2/signin?l=8679424414231038462 (regular papers) and
https://easychair.org/account2/signin?l=1380962008236610457 (SRC abstracts).
Contact us
For any inquires regarding the call for papers, please contact gaggi(a)math.unipd.it.
We look forward to your contributions and to seeing you at the ACM SAC 2026 Conference!