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• Making Lecture Videos Accessible for Students who are Blind or have Low Vision through AI-Assisted Navigation and Visual Question Answering

  Katharina Anderer, Karin Müller, Lukas Strobel, Matthias Wölfel, Jan Niehues, Kathrin Gerling · 2025 · Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2025)

  This paper presents the design and evaluation of LectureAssistant, an AI-powered prototype that makes lecture videos more accessible for students who are blind or have low vision. The research follows a three-part human-centred design process. First, need-finding interviews with…

  blind and low vision · lecture accessibility · higher education · large language models · vision-language models

• Benthic: Perceptually Congruent Structures for Accessible Charts and Diagrams

  Catherine Mei, Josh Pollock, Daniel Hajas, Jonathan Zong, Arvind Satyanarayan · 2025 · Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2025)

  This paper introduces Benthic, a system that creates perceptually congruent screen reader structures for graphical representations such as charts and diagrams. The core insight is that graphical representations communicate meaning through visual structure—Gestalt grouping…

  data visualization accessibility · screen readers · blind and low vision · chart accessibility · diagram accessibility

• QuickQue: Enabling Quick Access to Information in User Reviews for Screen Reader Users

  Mohan Sunkara, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Sandeep Kalari, Yash Prakash, Sampath Jayarathna, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A 2025)

  This paper presents QuickCue, a Google Chrome browser extension that helps blind screen reader users efficiently access online customer reviews by using LLM-powered aspect and sentiment classification to organize and summarize review content. The current experience of reading…

  screen readers · blind users · online reviews · large language models · browser extension

• Adapting Online Customer Reviews for Blind Users: A Case Study of Restaurant Reviews

  Mohan Sunkara, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Sandeep Kalari, Yash Prakash, Sampath Jayarathna, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses the significant usability challenges blind screen reader users face when navigating online customer reviews, using restaurant reviews on Google Maps as a case study. The research proceeds in two phases. First, an interview study with 30 blind screen reader…

  screen readers · blind users · online reviews · LLM accessibility · content summarization

• AccessMenu: Enhancing Usability of Online Restaurant Menus for Screen Reader Users

  Nithiya Venkatraman, Akshay Kolgar Nayak, Suyog Dahal, Yash Prakash, Hae-Na Lee, Vikas Ashok · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses the significant accessibility barriers that blind and visually impaired (BVI) screen reader users face when trying to access online restaurant menus, which are typically presented as images or PDFs. The research proceeds in two phases. First, an interview…

  screen readers · blind users · visual document understanding · LLM accessibility · multimodal AI

• 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

• Increasing Agency of Screen-Reader Users in Consuming Information From Online Data Visualizations

  Ather Sharif, Andrew Zhang, Jacob Wobbrock · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses a fundamental equity problem in data visualization accessibility: screen-reader users are limited to consuming only the information that visualization creators choose to provide, with no agency to customize what they hear. Prior research shows screen-reader…

  data visualization accessibility · screen readers · user agency · sonification · alt text

• Data Sonification for Screen-Reader Users: When and When Not to Use

  Ather Sharif, Neha Aitharaju, Srihari Krishnaswamy, Jacob Wobbrock · 2025 · Proceedings of the 22nd International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper from the University of Washington assesses when data sonification — non-speech audio representations of data visualizations — is and is not beneficial for screen-reader users. Despite sonification dating back to 1974 and growing adoption in commercial products (Apple…

  sonification · data visualization · screen readers · blindness · visual impairment

• The Qualities of Convivial Tools and Their Relevance to Music Software Accessibility

  Alex Lucas, James Cunningham, Jacob Harrison, Franziska Schroeder, Andrew McPherson · 2025 · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This qualitative study explores how visually impaired and blind (VIB) people access digital audio workstations (DAWs) for creative sound work, drawing on Ivan Illich's concept of "convivial tools" to frame accessibility recommendations. The authors conducted 2-hour remote…

  visual impairment · blindness · digital audio workstations · music accessibility · communities of practice

• Morae: Proactively Pausing UI Agents for User Choices

  Yi-Hao Peng, Dingzeyu Li, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Amy Pavel · 2025 · Proceedings of the 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST '25)

  This paper introduces Morae, a UI agent that proactively pauses during automated task execution to involve blind and low-vision (BLV) users in critical decisions, rather than completing tasks end-to-end without user input. The work is motivated by a field study with four BLV…

  UI agents · blind and low vision · large language models · human-agent interaction · user agency

• 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

• Context-Aware Image Descriptions for Web Accessibility

  Ananya Gubbi Mohanbabu, Amy Pavel · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '24)

  This paper addresses a fundamental limitation of current AI-generated image descriptions: they describe images in isolation without considering the surrounding webpage context. When blind and low-vision (BLV) users encounter images on the web, what they need to know about an…

  alt text · image descriptions · blind and low vision · artificial intelligence · large language models

• Understanding and Reducing the Challenges Faced by Creators of Accessible Online Data Visualizations

  Ather Sharif, Joo Gyeong Kim, Jessie Zijia Xu, Jacob O. Wobbrock · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS '24)

  This paper investigates the challenges visualization creators face in making online data visualizations accessible to screen-reader users and develops interventions to address these challenges. Data visualizations (charts, graphs, maps, dashboards) are increasingly prevalent on…

  data visualization · screen readers · web accessibility · sonification · blind and low vision

• MAIDR Meets AI: Exploring Multimodal LLM-Based Data Visualization Interpretation by and with Blind and Low-Vision Users

  JooYoung Seo, Sanchita S. Kamath, Aziz Zeidieh, Saairam Venkatesh, Sean McCurry · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper investigates how blind and low-vision (BLV) users interact with large language models to interpret data visualizations, building on the authors' previously developed MAIDR (Multimodal Access and Interactive Data Representation) framework. MAIDR already provides…

  blind and low vision · data visualization · large language models · generative AI · sonification

• Information Wayfinding of Screen Reader Users: Five Personas to Expand Conceptualizations of User Experiences

  J. Bern Jordan, Victoria Van Hyning, Mason A. Jones, Rachael Bradley Montgomery, Elizabeth Bottner, Evan Tansil · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This paper presents five user personas representing the diverse range of screen reader experiences, developed from observations across several studies with blind screen reader users. The authors challenge the common assumption in research and development that screen reader users…

  screen readers · blind users · personas · user experience · information wayfinding

• 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

• Breaking the News Barrier: Towards Understanding News Consumption Practices among BVI Individuals in India

  Peya Mowar, Meghna Gupta, Mohit Jain · 2024 · ASSETS 2024: 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This study examines digital news consumption practices among blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals in India, a country home to approximately 4.95 million blind and 35 million visually impaired people. Through semi-structured interviews and contextual inquiry with 17…

  blindness · visual impairment · news consumption · screen readers · information access

• "I look at it as the king of knowledge": How Blind People Use and Understand Generative AI Tools

  Rudaiba Adnin, Maitraye Das · 2024 · ASSETS 2024: 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

  This study investigates how blind individuals use and make sense of mainstream generative AI tools, based on semi-structured interviews with 19 blind participants who regularly use tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Claude, and Be My AI (the GenAI-powered…

  generative AI · blindness · visual impairment · ChatGPT · mental models

• A Recipe for Success? Exploring Strategies for Improving Non-Visual Access to Cooking Instructions

  Franklin Mingzhe Li, Ashley Wang, Patrick Carrington, Shaun K. Kane · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024)

  This paper investigates how people with vision impairments access and follow cooking recipes, identifying practices, challenges, and design opportunities for more accessible kitchen technologies. The researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 blind cooks (ranging…

  blind · visual impairment · cooking accessibility · recipe access · assistive technology

• The Promise and Pitfalls of Web Accessibility Overlays for Blind and Low Vision Users

  Tlamelo Makati, Garreth W. Tigwell, Kristen Shinohara · 2024 · Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2024)

  This study provides the first substantial empirical evidence from blind and low-vision users about their experiences with web accessibility overlays—third-party JavaScript tools that claim to enhance website usability for people with disabilities by adding an additional…

  web accessibility · accessibility overlays · screen readers · blind users · low vision

• Accessibility Guidelines and Standards: Analyzing Stack Overflow Posts

  Asmaa Mansour Alghamdi, Wajdi Aljedaani, Marcelo M. Eler, Stephanie Ludi · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A '24)

  This study analyses 5,092 Stack Overflow posts related to web accessibility (from an initial dataset of 8,538 posts tagged with "accessibility" or "WCAG" between 2008 and 2022) to understand the practical challenges developers face when implementing accessibility guidelines.…

  WCAG · web development · developer experience · accessibility testing · screen readers

• Beyond Sight: Empowering Visually Impaired Users with Audible Graphs

  Wajdi Aljedaani, Uday Kiran Chimpiri, Durgasantosh Gaddam, Vaseem Ahammed Shaik, Yaswitha Karasala, Marcelo M. Eler · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This technical note presents a tool designed to make data visualizations accessible to people with visual impairments by converting them into audible and textual representations. The tool addresses a significant gap: while data visualization is central to modern information…

  data visualization · visual impairments · sonification · screen readers · optical character recognition

• A Universal Web Accessibility Feedback Form: A Participatory Design Study

  Adrian Wegener, Kathrin Fausel, Saskia Haug, Alexander Maedche · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper addresses a gap in web accessibility practice: while automated testing tools can catch structural violations, they cannot reliably assess the quality of alternative text, the usability of dynamic content, or many other issues that only human users can identify. The EU…

  web accessibility · participatory design · visual impairments · feedback mechanisms · user-centered design

• Direct or Immersive? Comparing Smartphone-based Museum Guide Systems for Blind Visitors

  Xiyue Wang, Seita Kayukawa, Hironobu Takagi, Giorgia Masoero, Chieko Asakawa · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper presents the first direct comparison of two smartphone-based museum guide paradigms for blind visitors: a "direct" system using turn-by-turn navigation with VoiceOver-controlled audio descriptions, and an "immersive" system using spatialized sound navigation with…

  museum accessibility · blindness · indoor navigation · spatialized audio · screen readers

• Toward Effective Communication of AI-Based Decisions in Assistive Tools: Conveying Confidence and Doubt to People with Visual Impairments at Accelerated Speech

  Taslima Akter, Manohar Swaminathan, Apu Kapadia · 2024 · Proceedings of the 21st International Web for All Conference (W4A)

  This paper investigates how people with visual impairments (PVIs) perceive confidence and doubt in speakers' voices when audio is played at accelerated speeds — a critical question because AI-based assistive tools (scene descriptors, facial recognition, image captioners) can…

  visual impairments · artificial intelligence · speech processing · screen readers · assistive technology