Experience Reports

Research on accessible and assistive technologies is primarily motivated by the needs of people with disabilities and other stakeholders. Understanding these needs is crucial but often requires first-hand experience that might be unavailable to all researchers in the community. ASSETS 2026 invites Experience Report track submissions that reflect people’s experiences with disabilities and the challenges and opportunities related to accessible and assistive technologies. These reports will be reflective in nature and will give authors an opportunity to share their experiences as people with disabilities, caregivers, rehabilitation professionals, educators, researchers, developers, entrepreneurs, or other stakeholders.

Experience report submissions should clearly explain how the research community will benefit from the reported experience. When applicable, the focus of the report should be described, including the citation of appropriate references. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

  • Accessibility challenges or solutions with existing technology;
  • Everyday problems for which effective assistive technologies do not yet exist;
  • Barriers to accessing technologies due to costs, cultural aspects, etc.;
  • Challenges or solutions in the development and distribution of accessible and assistive technologies;
  • Recommendations for technologies which leverage best practices;
  • Requirements of specific communities, such as people with multiple disabilities, children with disabilities, or older adults;
  • Challenges or solutions related to conducting research in an accessible and equitable manner;
  • Challenges or solutions related to regulatory policies;
  • Challenges or solutions arising in the field of accessibility and computing education;
  • Challenges or solutions of tools and methodologies in the field of education of people with disabilities;
  • Other topics relevant to the ASSETS conference

We encourage authors to not be constrained by the technical paper format, and offer authors the chance to submit their work in the form of a pictorial.

We have curated a few examples of past experience reports that fit within the scope of the track:

Experience reports are not:

  • Personal accounts written under pressure. Although experience reports are an appropriate track for people to consensually share personal experiences, it is not a track for senior mentors to pressure students with disabilities and/or other minoritized identities to share experiences they do not want to share.
  • Works in progress. If the work you are considering submitting would qualify for the posters and demos track, please submit it there. The experience reports track is meant to bring out knowledge that is not highlighted by other tracks. We understand the line can be thin; for example, someone sharing reflections on conducting a particular type of research study in an accessible manner may also publish a case study or technical paper reporting an evaluation of their accessible study design. Similarly, reflexive thematic analysis and other techniques recognize the researcher’s positionality in a similar way that experience reports are meant to foreground lived experience. However, reviewers will evaluate submissions according to how they uniquely fit within the experience reports track.

Important Dates

All deadlines are 11:59 P.M. Anywhere on Earth (UTC -12:00).

  • Wednesday, June 10, 2026 - Experience Reports Submission Deadline
  • Wednesday, July 15, 2026 - Notification of Acceptance
  • Wednesday, July 22, 2026 - Camera-ready of Experience Reports due. Following this deadline, authors will receive instructions for completing their eRights forms, validating and submitting their paper to TAPS, and submitting their final accessible PDF.

Submission Guidelines

ASSETS uses the ACM Publication System (TAPS) process to generate final multi-format representations of accepted papers.

The correct template for submission is: single-column Word Submission Template and single-column LaTeX (using “manuscript” style available in the template). You may also choose to use Overleaf.

Experience Reports proposals are limited to 8 pages in the single-column submission format, and references do not count toward page limits. Submissions should NOT be anonymized: the authors' names should be on the paper.

Writing Guidelines are available to help authors choose appropriate language for writing about technology and people with disabilities. Particularly for Experience Reports, when discussing their own experiences of disability, authors are encouraged to use their preferred language to describe their disability identity.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel, per the ASSETS policy on Program Committees.

Accepted Experience Reports will be published in the conference proceedings.

Accessible Submissions

Your PDF submission must be accessible. It may take several hours to make your PDF file accessible (adding alt tags, etc.), so be sure to leave time before the submission deadline to do so. Please refer to the instructions on Creating an Accessible ACM Conference Paper on how to accomplish this.

It is expected that experience reports will be made accessible both at the time of review and for the final submission. Submissions that are not accessible will be desk rejected. If you have questions about making your experience report accessible, please contact the Accessibility Chairs at access-assets26@acm.org.

Authorship Guidelines

The ACM Publications Board has recently updated the ACM Authorship Policy in several ways:

  • Addressing the use of generative AI systems in the publications process
  • Clarifying criteria for authorship and the responsibilities of authors
  • Defining prohibited behavior, such as gift, ghost, or purchased authorship
  • Providing a linked FAQ explaining the rationale for the policy and providing additional details

Please read the updated policy at https://www.acm.org/publications/policies/new-acm-policy-on-authorship and ensure your submission adheres to it.

How to Submit

The submission deadline is Wednesday, June 10, 2026, 11:59 P.M. Anywhere on Earth (UTC -12:00). Please submit via the ASSETS 2026 Experience Reports submissions site (link will be posted soon).

Important-Author PCS Account Requirements

ACM continues to update the publication process. Currently, paper metadata will be pulled directly from your personal PCS account. This means that it is crucial for you and all of your co-authors to update the contact information so that names, affiliations, AND primary email addresses are stylized precisely in the way that you all would want to see them in the ACM digital library and on your paper. For example, if you use a personal email address (xyz123@hotmail.com) as your primary contact email in PCS then this email will appear on your paper. Please check your author information and make the necessary changes.

ACM Open Access Publishing

Important update on ACM's new open access publishing model for 2026 ACM Conferences:

Starting January 1, 2026, ACM will fully transition to Open Access. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two primary options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs). With over 1,800 institutions already part of ACM Open, the majority of ACM-sponsored conference papers will not require APCs from authors or conferences (currently, around 70-75%).

Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Keep in mind that waivers are rare and are granted based on specific criteria set by ACM.

Understanding that this change could present financial challenges, ACM has approved a temporary subsidy for 2026 to ease the transition and allow more time for institutions to join ACM Open. The subsidy will offer:

  • $250 APC for ACM/SIG members
  • $350 for non-members

This represents a 65% discount, funded directly by ACM. Authors are encouraged to help advocate for their institutions to join ACM Open during this transition period. This temporary subsidized pricing will apply to all conferences scheduled for 2026.

Further Information

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM's new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. We are committed to improving author discoverability, ensuring proper attribution and contributing to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.

For further information or any questions regarding the event or submissions, please contact the Experience Report Chairs Yasmine Elglaly and Roshan Peiris at experience-reports-assets26@acm.org.