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• Augmenting Imagery with Multimodal Vibrotactile Representations: Touch, Feel, and Hear

  Mazen Salous, Matthias Kramer, Wilko Heuten, Charles Hudin, Susanne Boll, Larbi Abdenebaoui · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper addresses a long-standing gap in image accessibility for blind and visually impaired (BVI) users: while alt text, sonification, tactile graphics, and refreshable Braille displays convey shape, layout, and identity, they rarely communicate how an object…

  image accessibility · blind and low vision · vibrotactile feedback · haptic rendering · material perception

• Characterizing Visual Intents for People with Low Vision through Eye Tracking

  Ru Wang, Ruijia Chen, Anqiao Erica Cai, Zhiyuan Li, Sanbrita Mondal, Yuhang Zhao · 2025 · Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2025)

  This study investigates how people with low vision use their gaze when viewing images, with the goal of understanding their visual intents — the immediate, in-the-moment goals behind their eye movements. While assistive technologies like magnifiers and contrast enhancement exist…

  low vision · eye tracking · visual intent · gaze behavior · assistive technology

• Evaluating the Effectiveness of STEM Images Captioning

  Maurizio Leotta, Marina Ribaudo · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A '24)

  This paper from the University of Genoa reports on an experiment comparing human-written and AI-generated alternative text descriptions for complex STEM images — graphs, diagrams, scientific illustrations, and mathematical figures. The researchers recruited 52 undergraduate…

  alt text · image accessibility · STEM accessibility · AI captioning · computer science education

• ImageExplorer Deployment: Understanding Text-Based and Touch-Based Image Exploration in the Wild

  Ruolin Xu, Yuxuan Cai, Shuying Hou, Yu-Jung Chang, Anhong Guo · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the real-world deployment and evaluation of ImageExplorer, an iOS application that enables blind and low-vision users to explore images through two complementary modalities: text-based sequential exploration and touch-based spatial exploration. The app was…

  image accessibility · screen readers · touch exploration · blind users · image description

• How the Alt Text Gets Made: What Roles and Processes of Alt Text Creation Can Teach Us About Inclusive Imagery

  Emory James Edwards, Kyle Lewis Polster, Isabel Tuason, Emily Blank, Michael Gilbert, Stacy Branham · 2023 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper investigates how alternative text is created in industry settings through a collaboration between UC Irvine researchers and Google's Avatar Project, an initiative to create inclusive stickers depicting people with disabilities. The research combines two studies: focus…

  alt text · image accessibility · inclusive imagery · disability representation · organizational practices

• IMAGE: A Deployment Framework for Creating Multimodal Experiences of Web Graphics

  Juliette Regimbal, Jeffrey R. Blum, Jeremy R. Cooperstock · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This short paper from McGill University introduces IMAGE (Internet Multimodal Access to Graphical Exploration), an open-source framework for converting web graphics into accessible multimodal outputs including audio, haptic, and text representations for blind and low vision…

  multimodal · web graphics · image accessibility · haptic feedback · sonification

• AIDE: An Automatic Image Description Engine for Review Imagery

  Rachana Sreedhar, Nicole Tan, Jingyue Zhang, Kim Jin, Spencer Gregson, Eli Moreta-Feliz, Niveditha Samudrala, Shrenik Sadalgi · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from Wayfair presents AIDE, a multimodal machine learning system that automatically generates contextual alt-text for user-submitted review images in e-commerce — a category of imagery that is particularly inaccessible because it is user-generated, unpredictable in…

  alt text · computer vision · blindness · visual impairment · screen readers

• "That's in the eye of the beholder": Layers of Interpretation in Image Descriptions for Fictional Representations of People with Disabilities

  Emory James Edwards, Kyle Lewis Polster, Isabel Tuason, Emily Blank, Michael Gilbert, Stacy Branham · 2021 · Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper investigates how to create accurate and sensitive image descriptions for fictional representations of people with disabilities — a challenge that arises when real subjects cannot be consulted about their preferred identity terminology. The study emerged from Google's…

  image accessibility · alt text · image descriptions · disability representation · design systems

• Designing Tools for High-Quality Alt Text Authoring

  Kelly Mack, Edward Cutrell, Bongshin Lee, Meredith Ringel Morris · 2021 · Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '21)

  This paper investigates how to improve the quality of alternative text through better authoring interfaces and feedback mechanisms for automatic alt text, focusing on Microsoft PowerPoint as the application context. The researchers built and tested four prototype interfaces: two…

  alt text · image accessibility · screen readers · authoring tools · automatic alt text

• Going Beyond One-Size-Fits-All Image Descriptions to Satisfy the Information Wants of People Who are Blind or Have Low Vision

  Abigale Stangl, Nitin Verma, Kenneth R. Fleischmann, Meredith Ringel Morris, Danna Gurari · 2021 · ASSETS '21: The 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  Current image description practices typically produce a single, one-size-fits-all description for each image, yet the same image can appear across vastly different contexts — news websites, e-commerce platforms, social media feeds, travel sites, and personal photo libraries —…

  image description · alternative text · blind · low vision · context-aware

• Twitter A11y: A Browser Extension to Make Twitter Images Accessible

  Cole Gleason, Amy Pavel, Emma McCamey, Christina Low, Patrick Carrington, Kris M. Kitani, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2020 · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This paper presents Twitter A11y, a browser extension designed to address the widespread lack of alternative text on images posted to Twitter. The authors note that while around 12% of Twitter content consists of images, only 0.1% of those images include user-provided alt text,…

  social media accessibility · alternative text · screen readers · image accessibility · optical character recognition

• Combining Semantic Tools for Automatic Evaluation of Alternative Texts

  Carlos Duarte, Carlos M. Duarte, Luís Carriço · 2019 · Proceedings of the 16th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents SCREW v2, an updated algorithm for automatically assessing the quality of alternative texts for images on web pages from an accessibility perspective. The work is motivated by the EU Directive 2016/2102, which requires monitoring the accessibility of public…

  alternative text · automated accessibility testing · image accessibility · semantic analysis · computer vision

• X-Ray: Screenshot Accessibility via Embedded Metadata

  Sujeath Pareddy, Anhong Guo, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper introduces X-Ray, a system that preserves the accessibility of user interface content when it is captured as a screenshot. Screenshots strip away all semantic information — text structure, element roles, states, labels, and navigation order — leaving only pixels that…

  screen readers · alternative text · screenshots · image accessibility · metadata

• Making Memes Accessible

  Cole Gleason, Amy Pavel, Xingyu Liu, Patrick Carrington, Lydia B. Chilton, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2019 · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2019)

  This paper presents two semi-automatic methods for making internet image macro memes accessible to people with vision impairments: rich alternative text descriptions and audio macro memes. Memes are a pervasive form of online communication, yet they are almost entirely…

  alternative text · blind · low vision · social media · image accessibility

• "It's almost like they're trying to hide it": How User-Provided Image Descriptions Have Failed to Make Twitter Accessible

  Cole Gleason, Patrick Carrington, Cameron Cassidy, Meredith Ringel Morris, Kris M. Kitani, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2019 · The World Wide Web Conference

  This paper presents the first large-scale empirical study of how Twitter's opt-in image description feature (launched in 2016) has affected the accessibility of images on the platform. The researchers analyzed 1.09 million tweets with images collected over five days in June…

  alternative text · social media accessibility · image accessibility · blindness · screen readers

• Accessify: An ML Powered Application to Provide Accessible Images on Web Sites

  Shivam Singh, Anurag Bhandari, Nishith Pathak · 2018 · Proceedings of the 15th International Web for All Conference (W4A 2018)

  This demonstration paper presents Accessify, a browser plugin that uses machine learning to automatically generate alternative text descriptions for all images on a website, injecting them into the page’s DOM so screen readers can access them. The system addresses the persistent…

  alternative text · image accessibility · machine learning · browser extension · computer vision

• On the Evaluation of Novel Sonification Techniques for Non-Visual Shape Exploration

  Sergio Mascetti, Andrea Gerino, Cristian Bernareggi, Lorenzo Picinali · 2017 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This paper proposes and evaluates six novel sonification techniques for enabling blind and visually impaired users to explore and recognize shapes on touchscreen devices, comparing them against two existing techniques from the literature. The motivation is that graphical…

  sonification · visual impairment · STEM accessibility · touchscreen · shape recognition

• Measuring the Impact of Automated Evaluation Tools on Alternative Text Quality: A Web Translation Study

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez · 2016 · Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the first empirical study on web accessibility conducted around a translation task, investigating how automated evaluation tools affect the quality of image text alternatives produced by web translators. Twenty-eight professional French translators were asked…

  alternative text · image accessibility · web translation · localization · automated testing

• Editor for accessible images in e-Learning platforms

  Sandra Sanchez-Gordon, Juan Estevez, Sergio Luján-Mora · 2016 · Proceedings of the 13th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract defines a set of twenty features that an HTML visual text editor should provide to support content authors in creating accessible images within e-learning platforms. The features were derived from reviewing published research on accessible images and…

  image accessibility · alternative text · e-learning accessibility · authoring tools · WCAG compliance

• Blind Photographers and VizSnap: A Long-Term Study

  Dustin Adams, Sri Kurniawan, Cynthia Herrera, Veronica Kang, Natalie Friedman · 2016 · Proceedings of the 18th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '16)

  This paper reports on a two-month longitudinal study with 13 blind participants (ages 18-65, nine totally blind and two with some light perception, seven adventitiously and six congenitally blind) using VizSnap, a free iPhone app designed to help blind people organize and browse…

  blindness · photography · mobile accessibility · social media · iPhone

• End-to-End Solution for Accessible Chemical Diagrams

  Volker Sorge, Mark Lee, Sandy Wilkinson · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a complete pipeline for making chemical diagrams — typically distributed as inaccessible bitmap images — fully accessible on the web. The system takes bitmap images of molecular diagrams as input and produces interactive, explorable SVG diagrams with semantic…

  STEM accessibility · image accessibility · visual impairment · screen readers · SVG

• Acrolinx: A Controlled-Language Checker Turned into an Accessibility Evaluation Tool for Image Text Alternatives

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez, Sabine Lehmann · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a novel application of controlled-language checking technology to a persistent accessibility problem: evaluating the quality of image text alternatives, not just their presence. The authors observe that while most web accessibility evaluation tools can detect…

  alt text · image accessibility · automated testing · controlled language · natural language processing

• Unlocking the Potential of Web Localizers as Contributors to Image Accessibility: What Do Evaluation Tools Have to Offer?

  Silvia Rodríguez Vázquez · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the role of web localization professionals (translators) in maintaining image accessibility when websites are adapted for different language audiences. The author identifies a significant gap: when websites are localized from one language to another, text…

  image accessibility · text alternatives · web localization · accessibility evaluation tools · quality assurance

• Providing Access to the High-Level Content of Line Graphs from Online Popular Media

  Priscilla S. Moraes, Sandra Carberry, Kathleen McCoy · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper extends the Interactive SIGHT (Summarizing Information Graphics Textually) system to generate natural language summaries of line graphs found in online popular media articles, making their high-level content accessible to visually impaired users via screen readers.…

  data visualization · visual impairment · natural language generation · assistive technology · screen readers

• Multimodal Summarization of Complex Sentences

  Naushad UzZaman, Jeffrey P. Bigham, James F. Allen · 2011 · Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI 2011)

  This paper introduces the concept of multimodal summarization (MMS) for complex sentences — automatically generating diagrams that combine pictures, simplified compressed text, and structural layout to help people understand difficult text. The system, ROC-MMS, targets people…

  cognitive accessibility · reading accessibility · natural language processing · augmentative and alternative communication · text simplification