Literature Reviews

Reviewed research papers, articles, and publications relevant to digital accessibility.

• Access to Interpretation: How Formal Cues Ground Interpretive Alt Text for Paintings

  Vera L. Zhong, Lucy Jiang, Kathryn E. Ringland (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA ’26)

  This CHI 2026 Extended Abstract examines a gap between mainstream alt text conventions and the interpretive work that paintings are designed to evoke. The authors argue that dominant guidance for alt text foregrounds brevity, objectivity, and functio…

  • alt text
  • image description
  • blind and low vision
  • museum accessibility
  • cultural heritage
  • interpretive access
  • art analysis
  • screen readers

• Measuring the Semantic Accessibility Gap in LLM-Generated Web UIs

  Tommaso Calo, Alexandra-Elena Gurita, Luigi De Russis (2026) — Extended Abstracts of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA '26)

  Calo, Gurita, and De Russis investigate a blind spot of mainstream automated accessibility tools: while scanners like Axe-core reliably catch missing alt attributes or unlabelled form fields (syntactic violations), they cannot tell whether the values…

  • web accessibility
  • large language models
  • LLM code generation
  • semantic accessibility
  • WCAG
  • LLM-as-judge
  • automated testing
  • alt text
  • ARIA
  • AI and accessibility

• iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility

  Peya Mowar, Aaron Steinfeld, Jeffrey P. Bigham (2026) — Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI '26)

  This CHI 2026 paper from Mowar, Steinfeld, and Bigham (Carnegie Mellon) presents iTagPDF, an automated system for tagging academic research PDFs so they are accessible to screen reader users. The authors argue that PDF accessibility has remained a pe…

  • PDF accessibility
  • tagged PDF
  • PDF remediation
  • automated accessibility
  • document layout analysis
  • LLM
  • vision-language models
  • LaTeX
  • alt text
  • reading order
  • scholarly publishing
  • automated testing

• Proposing New Metrics to Evaluate Web Usability for the Blind

  Kentarou Fukuda, Shin Saito, Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa (2005) — CHI '05 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This four-page CHI '05 extended abstract argues that existing automated accessibility checkers — in 2005 typified by Bobby — had plateaued: they verified the presence of ALT attributes, labels, and markup conformance, yet real blind users still found…

  • web accessibility
  • accessibility evaluation
  • accessibility metrics
  • screen readers
  • voice browser
  • blindness and low vision
  • automated accessibility
  • alt text
  • accessibility testing

• Accessibility Designer: Visualizing Usability for the Blind

  Hironobu Takagi, Chieko Asakawa, Kentarou Fukuda, Junji Maeda (2003) — Proceedings of the 6th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (Assets '04)

  This paper from IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory presents Accessibility Designer (aDesigner), a tool that goes beyond conventional accessibility checkers by visualising the usability of web pages for blind screen reader users rather than merely checki…

  • web accessibility
  • accessibility testing
  • screen reader
  • blindness and low vision
  • accessibility tools
  • usability
  • automated testing
  • skip navigation
  • alt text
  • heading hierarchy
  • accessibility evaluation

• "It's Complicated": Negotiating Accessibility and (Mis)Representation in Image Descriptions of Race, Gender, and Disability

  Cynthia L. Bennett, Cole Gleason, Morgan Klaus Scheuerman, Jeffrey P. Bigham, Anhong Guo, Alexandra To (2021) — CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

  This qualitative study investigates how screen reader users who are also Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC), non-binary, and/or transgender navigate the complex landscape of image descriptions, particularly regarding how appearance characteri…

  • image descriptions
  • alt text
  • screen readers
  • visual impairments
  • race
  • gender
  • disability
  • AI bias
  • representation
  • intersectionality
  • identity

• Guiding Novice Web Workers in Making Image Descriptions Using Templates

  Valerie S. Morash, Yue-Ting Siu, Joshua A. Miele, Lucia Hasty, Steven Landau (2015) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS)

  This study compares two approaches for using non-expert crowdworkers to create accessible descriptions of STEM images (charts, graphs, diagrams) for people who are blind or have print-reading disabilities. The researchers tested Free-Response Image D…

  • image description
  • alt text
  • crowdsourcing
  • human computation
  • STEM accessibility
  • visual impairment
  • data visualization
  • blind

• 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 20…

  • document accessibility
  • PDF accessibility
  • academic publishing
  • alt text
  • data visualization
  • content elements
  • accessible authoring

• What's in an ALT Tag? Exploring Caption Content Priorities through Collaborative Captioning

  Annika Muehlbradt, Shaun K. Kane (2022) — ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing

  This paper investigates what makes a good image caption through a novel collaborative captioning methodology. Six pairs of blind and sighted partners—including married couples, friends, and roommates—worked together to create and refine captions for …

  • image descriptions
  • alt text
  • collaborative accessibility
  • cross-ability collaboration
  • screen readers
  • social media accessibility

• 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 researc…

  • alt text
  • image accessibility
  • inclusive imagery
  • disability representation
  • organizational practices
  • UX design
  • qualitative research