Creating accessible PDFs for conference proceedings
Abstract
A responsibility we have as researchers is to disseminate the results of our research widely. A primary way we do this is through research publications. When these publications are not accessible to everyone, some readers will be excluded and the impact of our research limited. In this paper, we explore this problem in two ways. First, we report on the accessibility of 1,811 papers in the technical program of several top conferences related to accessibility and human-computer interaction. Second, we reflect on our experience making papers accessible for any CHI 2015 author who requested it. We offer thoughts on research challenges and future work that may make our community's research more accessible.
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Persistent challenges remain in ensuring that documents prepared in PDF consistently include the metadata necessary to make them accessible to people with disabilities.
“Despite this, persistent challenges remain in ensuring that documents prepared in this format consistently include the metadata necessary to make them accessible to people with disabilities [2, 3].”
From iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Authors often fail to provide accessibility metadata consistently or at adequate quality, rendering most academic content inaccessible to people with disabilities.
“Unsurprisingly, authors often fail to provide this metadata consistently or at adequate quality, rendering most academic content inaccessible to people with disabilities, as the following studies demonstrate.”
From iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Making academic paper PDFs accessible has remained a persistent challenge over the past decade.
“Making academic paper PDFs accessible has remained a persistent challenge over the past decade [3, 10].”
From iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Brady et al. found that only a fraction of 1.8k PDFs published at ACM venues were tagged, with particularly poor coverage at CHI (<26.8%).
“A decade ago, Brady et al. [3] examined the accessibility of 1.8k PDFs published at ACM venues and found only a fraction of papers were tagged, even in conferences related to accessibility, with particularly poor coverage at CHI (<26.8%).”
From iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
Our evaluation aligns with prior accessibility assessments of ASSETS and CHI papers [3], showing that papers submitted to ASSETS are significantly more compliant with accessibility standards than those submitted to CHI.
“Our evaluation aligns with prior accessibility assessments of ASSETS and CHI papers [3], showing that papers submitted to ASSETS are significantly more compliant with accessibility standards than those submitted to CHI.”
From iTagPDF: Towards Finally Automating PDF Accessibility (2026) · cites this paper as [3]
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References 4 · Cited by 35
- Authors
- Brady, E., Zhong, Y., & Bigham, J. P.
- Affiliations
- University of Rochester (US)
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 12th International Web for All Conference
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2015-05-18
- Pages
- 1-4
- OpenAlex
- W1978722038
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 4
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 5.56
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Web for All Conference (W4A) (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation (#IIS-1149709)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Information Systems and Management › Academic Publishing and Open Access
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computational Theory and Mathematics › Mathematics, Computing, and Information Processing
- Keywords
- PDF accessibility, accessible publishing, disability, human-computer interaction research, research dissemination
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