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• Lost in Instructions: Study of Blind Users' Experiences with DIY Manuals and AI-Rewritten Instructions for Assembly, Operation, and Troubleshooting of Tangible Products

  Monalika Padma Reddy, Aruna Balasubramanian, Jiawei Zhou, Xiaojun Bi, IV Ramakrishnan, Vikas Ashok · 2026 · Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  Blind users increasingly reach for AI tools like Be My AI (Be My Eyes' GPT-4-powered assistant) and ChatGPT to interpret the printed and PDF product manuals that accompany consumer goods - flat-pack furniture, alarm clocks, timers, ring lights, smart thermostats. Prior…

  blind and low vision · generative AI · large language model · assistive technology · document accessibility

• Benchmarking PDF Accessibility Evaluation: A Dataset and Framework for Assessing Automated and LLM-Based Approaches for Accessibility Testing

  Anukriti Kumar, Tanushree Padath, Lucy Lu Wang · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper addresses a critical gap in PDF accessibility evaluation by introducing the first expert-validated benchmark dataset and standardized evaluation framework for assessing how well different tools and approaches can evaluate PDF accessibility. Despite PDFs being the…

  PDF accessibility · automated testing · large language models · WCAG · PDF/UA

• Accessible workplace, inaccessible workflows: mandatory documents, challenges and workarounds in accessible onboarding

  Scott Hollier, Justin Brown, Ruchi Permvattana · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This short paper presents a lived-experience case study from the Centre For Accessibility Australia (CFAA), a not-for-profit accessibility auditing organization where 9 of 12 staff have lived experience of disability, including the legally blind director who uses screen readers.…

  PDF accessibility · workplace accessibility · government forms · screen readers · document accessibility

• FormA11y — Research and Development of a Tool for Remediating PDF Forms for Accessibility

  Sparsh Paliwal, Joshua Hoeflich, J. Bern Jordan, Rajiv Jain, Vlad I. Morariu, Alexa Siu, Jonathan Lazar · 2025 · ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, Vol. 32, No. 1

  Paliwal and colleagues — a team spanning the University of Maryland's Maryland Initiative for Digital Accessibility (MIDA), Northwestern, and Adobe Research — tackle a problem that has been largely overlooked in PDF accessibility research: the remediation of interactive *PDF…

  PDF accessibility · PDF forms · PDF/UA · document accessibility · remediation tools

• Uncovering the New Accessibility Crisis in Scholarly PDFs: Publishing Model and Platform Changes Contribute to Declining Scholarly Document Accessibility in the Last Decade

  Anukriti Kumar, Lucy Lu Wang · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents a large-scale analysis of 20,000 scholarly PDFs published between 2014 and 2023 to characterise the scope and trajectory of document accessibility in academic publishing. Most scholarly works are distributed as PDFs, a format that can present severe…

  PDF accessibility · scholarly publishing · document accessibility · screen readers · tagged PDF

• A11yPDF: Bridging the Gap to Inclusive PDFs

  Wajdi Aljedaani, Sandeep Kumar Rudhravaram, Akhila Chintham, Abdulrahman Habib, Marcelo M. Eler · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This technical note introduces A11yPDF, a free web-based tool for evaluating the accessibility of PDF documents against WCAG 2.2 guidelines. The tool addresses key limitations of existing PDF accessibility checkers such as PDFA Inspector, PAVE, ABBYY FineReader, Common Look, and…

  PDF accessibility · automated testing · accessibility evaluation · document accessibility · WCAG

• AutoChemplete - Making Chemical Structural Formulas Accessible

  Merlin Knaeble, Gabriel Sailer, Zihan Chen, Thorsten Schwarz, Kailun Yang, Mario Nadj, Rainer Stiefelhagen, Alexander Maedche · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents AutoChemplete, an interactive labeling tool that makes chemical structural formulas accessible to blind and low-vision (BLV) students. Chemical structural formulas — visual diagrams showing atoms, bonds, and molecular geometry — are fundamental to studying…

  STEM accessibility · blind and low vision · chemistry · machine learning · interactive labeling

• Authoring Web-accessible Mathematical Diagrams

  David Austin, Volker Sorge · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract presents an XML-based authoring language for creating web-accessible mathematical diagrams, designed to integrate with PreTeXt, a tool for producing accessible scholarly documents. While text and mathematical formulas in LaTeX can be made web-accessible…

  STEM accessibility · mathematical diagrams · SVG accessibility · screen readers · sonification

• AutoChemplete - Making Chemical Structural Formulas Accessible (Extended Abstract)

  Merlin Knaeble, Gabriel Sailer, Zihan Chen, Thorsten Schwarz, Kailun Yang, Mario Nadj, Rainer Stiefelhagen, Alexander Maedche · 2023 · Proceedings of the 20th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This extended abstract presents AutoChemplete, an interactive labeling tool designed to make chemical structural formulas accessible to blind and low vision (BLV) students. The paper highlights a stark gap in STEM education: while 69% of US BLV students express interest in STEM…

  STEM accessibility · chemistry accessibility · blind and low vision · interactive labeling · machine learning

• Toward supporting quality alt text in computing publications

  Candace Williams, Lilian de Greef, Ed Harris, Leah Findlater, Amy Pavel, Cynthia Bennett · 2022 · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the state of alternative text for figures in computing research publications, an understudied context where figures often convey dense, complex visual information quite different from social media or news imagery. The researchers conducted two…

  alternative text · scientific figures · data visualization · screen readers · document accessibility

• Accessible Communication and Materials in Higher Education

  Kelly Mack · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This doctoral consortium paper from a researcher at the University of Washington proposes a dissertation addressing two core areas of inaccessibility in higher education: inaccessible course materials (particularly slideshow presentations) and the breakdown of communication…

  higher education · accommodations · document accessibility · slideshows · automated repair

• A Dataset of Alt Texts from HCI Publications: Analyses and Uses Towards Producing More Descriptive Alt Texts of Data Visualizations in Scientific Papers

  Sanjana Shivani Chintalapati, Jonathan Bragg, Lucy Lu Wang · 2022 · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '22)

  This paper examines the quality and availability of alt text for data visualizations in scientific publications, focusing on papers from the HCI and accessibility communities (CHI and ASSETS conferences, 2010-2020). The authors processed over 25,000 paper PDFs and found that…

  alt text · data visualization · scientific documents · blind and low vision · document accessibility

• Author Reflections on Creating Accessible Academic Papers

  Rachel Menzies, Garreth W. Tigwell, Michael Crabb · 2022 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This mixed-methods study investigates why academic papers remain inaccessible despite available guidance from SIGACCESS and others. The researchers analyzed 3,866 content elements (tables, charts, images) from 330 ASSETS conference papers spanning 2011-2020, then conducted…

  document accessibility · PDF accessibility · academic publishing · alt text · data visualization

• Towards Generating Web-Accessible STEM Documents from PDF

  Volker Sorge, Mark Lee, Sandy Wilkinson · 2020 · Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a fully automated, web-based pipeline for converting PDF documents into accessible HTML and ePub formats, with a particular focus on STEM content containing mathematical formulas and tables. The authors address a fundamental problem in document accessibility:…

  document accessibility · PDF conversion · STEM accessibility · mathematical formulas · automated remediation

• PDF Readability Enhancement on Mobile Devices

  Zachary Shelton, Chen-Hsiang Yu · 2020 · Proceedings of the 17th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents PDFroggy, an Android application that applies content transformation techniques to PDF documents on mobile devices to enhance readability. The research addresses a specific gap: while previous work has demonstrated that content transformation methods like…

  PDF accessibility · readability · mobile accessibility · content transformation · document accessibility

• Ontology-Driven Transformations for PDF Form Accessibility

  Utku Uckun, Ali Selman Aydin, Vikas Ashok, IV Ramakrishnan · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This demonstration paper presents TransPAc (Transformations for PDF Form Accessibility), an assistive technology that transforms PDF forms into accessible HTML pages so blind screen-reader users can fill them out. PDF forms present multiple accessibility barriers: many are…

  screen readers · document accessibility · PDF accessibility · blindness and low vision · web accessibility

• Automated Generation of Accessible PDF

  Shaban Zulfiqar, Safa Arooj, Umar Hayat, Suleman Shahid, Asim Karim · 2020 · Proceedings of the 22nd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2020)

  This demonstration paper presents AGAP (Automated Generation of Accessible PDF), an open-source tool that automates the generation of accessible PDFs from LaTeX source files while making the authoring process itself accessible to people with vision impairments. LaTeX is the…

  PDF accessibility · document accessibility · screen readers · STEM accessibility · automated testing

• 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

• Subjective Evaluation of Website Accessibility and Usability: A Survey for People with Sensory Disabilities

  Tahani Alahmadi, Steve Drew · 2017 · Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents a novel subjective evaluation model for assessing web accessibility and usability from the perspective of students with sensory disabilities, applied to Australian university websites. The model integrates accessibility criteria from WCAG 2.0 and Section 508…

  accessibility evaluation · usability · university websites · education accessibility · sensory disabilities

• Extraction of Tabular Data from Document Images

  Manolis Vasileiadis, Nikolaos Kaklanis, Konstantinos Votis, Dimitrios Tzovaras · 2017 · Proceedings of the 14th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This demonstration paper presents an open-source tool for automatically detecting and extracting tabular data from document images — both scanned and digitally created — and converting them into accessible HTML format. The work addresses a significant accessibility gap: tables…

  document accessibility · OCR · table recognition · visual impairment · document conversion

• An Uninteresting Tour Through Why Our Research Papers Aren't Accessible

  Jeffrey P. Bigham, Erin L. Brady, Cole Gleason, Anhong Guo, David A. Shamma · 2016 · Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA 2016)

  This paper provides a candid examination of why academic research papers, delivered almost exclusively as PDFs, remain largely inaccessible to people with disabilities. The authors — who have spent years actively trying to improve the situation — trace the problem from PDF's…

  PDF accessibility · document accessibility · academic publishing · screen readers · alternative text

• Creating accessible PDFs for conference proceedings

  Erin Brady, Yu Zhong, Jeffrey P. Bigham · 2015 · Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates the accessibility of PDF research papers published at major ACM conferences related to accessibility and human-computer interaction. The authors conducted a two-part analysis: first, an automated accessibility check of 1,811 papers from four years of CHI,…

  PDF accessibility · document accessibility · tagged PDF · PDF/UA · screen readers

• READ: A (Research) Platform for Evaluating Non-visual Access Methods to Digital Documents

  Laurent Sorin, Julie Lemarié, Mustapha Mojahid · 2015 · ASSETS '15: Proceedings of the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers & Accessibility

  READ (Documents Architecture REstitution) is a configurable research platform for evaluating alternative methods of non-visual access to digital documents. The system addresses a well-documented problem: despite extensive functionality, screen readers remain frustrating and…

  document accessibility · research platform · non-visual access · screen readers · text-to-speech

• Making Arabic PDF books accessible using gamification

  Hend AlRouqi, Hend S. Al-Khalifa · 2014 · Proceedings of the 11th Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses the inaccessibility of Arabic PDF books for people with visual impairments, blindness, and dyslexia. Most online Arabic books are scanned images of printed originals, making them unreadable by screen readers and text-to-speech software. Arabic OCR technology…

  document accessibility · gamification · crowdsourcing · OCR · Arabic accessibility

• Crowdsourcing Platform for Workplace Accessibility

  Hironobu Takagi, Akihiro Kosugi, Shin Saito, Masayoshi Teraguchi · 2013 · Proceedings of the 10th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility (W4A)

  This paper from IBM Research Tokyo proposes Crowd Card, an intra-organizational crowdsourcing platform designed to improve workplace accessibility while maintaining confidentiality of business materials. The core problem is that modern workplaces are filled with inaccessible…

  crowdsourcing · workplace accessibility · image description · video captioning · document accessibility