Designing Tools for High-Quality Alt Text Authoring
Abstract
Alternative (alt) text provides access to descriptions of digital images for people who use screen readers. While prior work studied screen reader users’ (SRUs’) preferences about alt text and automatic alt text (i.e., alt text generated by artificial intelligence), little work examined the alt text author’s experience composing or editing these descriptions. We built two types of prototype interfaces for two tasks: authoring alt text and providing feedback on automatic alt text. Through combined interview-usability testing sessions with alt text authors and interviews with SRUs, we tested the effectiveness of our prototypes in the context of Microsoft PowerPoint. Our results suggest that authoring interfaces that support authors in choosing what to include in their descriptions result in higher quality alt text. The feedback interfaces highlighted considerable differences in the perceptions of authors and SRUs regarding “high-quality” alt text. Finally, authors crafted significantly lower quality alt text when starting from the automatic alt text compared to starting from a blank box. We discuss the implications of these results on applications that support alt text.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Concerns exist regarding the reliability and appropriateness of AI-generated alt text in academic contexts.
“However, concerns exist regarding the reliability and appropriateness of AI-generated alt text in academic contexts [27, 48, 66].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
Authors tend to over-trust automated or AI-generated content, rarely editing for accuracy.
“Mostly, authors tend to over-trust automated or AI-generated content, rarely editing for accuracy [44, 48].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
Most research in this space has focused on content creators or domain experts who author their figures.
“Most research in this space has focused on content creators or domain experts who author their figures [4, 26, 48, 71].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
People find it hard to produce effective alt text for inaccessible figures.
“and people find it hard to produce effective alt text for those [33, 48, 53].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [48]
Cites
Using thematic analysis in psychology
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006) · Qualitative Research in Psychology · doi:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa · Cited by 194,414 · see citing works
Reflecting on reflexive thematic analysis
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2019) · Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health · doi:10.1080/2159676x.2019.1628806 · Cited by 19,677 · see citing works
Ask Me Anything: Free-Form Visual Question Answering Based on Knowledge from External Sources
Wu, Q., Wang, P., Shen, C., Dick, A., & van den Hengel, A. (2016) · IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings - IEEE Computer Society Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition/Proceedings · doi:10.1109/cvpr.2016.500 · Cited by 362 · see citing works
(2017) · doi:10.1145/2998181.2998364 · Cited by 258 · see citing works
Understanding Blind People's Experiences with Computer-Generated Captions of Social Media Images
MacLeod, H., Bennett, C. L., Morris, M. R., & Cutrell, E. (2017) · Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3025453.3025814 · Cited by 200 · see citing works
Self-citationHow Blind People Interact with Visual Content on Social Networking Services
Voykinska, V., Azenkot, S., Wu, S., & Leshed, G. (2016) · ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) · doi:10.1145/2818048.2820013 · Cited by 180 · see citing works
Rich Representations of Visual Content for Screen Reader Users
Morris, M. R., Johnson, J., Bennett, C. L., & Cutrell, E. (2018) · Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3173633 · Cited by 159 · see citing works
Self-citationMorris, M., Zolyomi, A., Yao, C., Bahram, S., Bigham, J., & Kane, S. K. (2016) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/2858036.2858116 · Cited by 157 · see citing works
Self-citationStangl, A., Morris, M. R., & Gurari, D. (2020) · Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3313831.3376404 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Self-citationBennett, C. L., Gleason, C., Scheuerman, M. K., Bigham, J. P., Guo, A., & To, A. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445498 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Twitter A11y: A Browser Extension to Make Twitter Images Accessible
Gleason, C., Pavel, A., McCamey, E., Low, C., Carrington, P., Kitani, K., & Bigham, J. P. (2020) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3313831.3376728 · Cited by 123 · see citing works
Caption Crawler: Enabling Reusable Alternative Text Descriptions using Reverse Image Search
Guinness, D., Cutrell, E., & Morris, M. R. (2018) · Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3173574.3174092 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Self-citationGleason, C., Carrington, P., Cassidy, C., Morris, M., Kitani, K. M., & Bigham, J. (2019) · The Web Conference · doi:10.1145/3308558.3313605 · Cited by 108 · see citing works
Self-citationGuiding Novice Web Workers in Making Image Descriptions Using Templates
Morash, V. S., Siu, Y.-T., Miele, J. A., Hasty, L., & Landau, S. (2015) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/2764916 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Gleason, C., Pavel, A., Liu, X., Carrington, P., Chilton, L. B., & Bigham, J. P. (2019) · Proceedings of the 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3308561.3353792 · Cited by 69 · see citing works
Zhao, Y., Wu, S., Reynolds, L., & Azenkot, S. (2017) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3134756 · Cited by 68 · see citing works
Ferrell, K. A., Correa-Torres, S. M., Howell, J. J., Pearson, R., Carver, W. M., Groll, A. S., Anthony, T. L., Matthews, D., Gould, B., O’Connell, T., et al. (2017) · Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness · doi:10.1177/0145482x1711100403 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Zou, H., & Treviranus, J. (2015) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/2700648.2809862 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
EyeDescribe: Combining Eye Gaze and Speech to Automatically Create Accessible Touch Screen Artwork
Reinholt, K., Guinness, D., & Kane, S. K. (2019) · ACM International Conference on Interactive Surfaces and Spaces (ISS) · doi:10.1145/3343055.3359722 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Diagram Center. 2019. Specific Guidelines: Art, Photos& Cartoons. http://diagramcenter.org/specific-guidelines-final-draft.html#20
- Chancey Fleet Cynthia L. Bennett Venkatesh Potluri and Meredith Ringel (panel moderator) Morris. 2020. CVPR 2020 VizWiz Grand Challenge Workshop – Panel Discussion with Blind Technology Experts. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/video/cvpr-2020-vizwiz-grand-challenge-workshop-panel-discussion-with-blind-technology-experts/
Cited by
Sorted by citations
FigurA11y: AI Assistance for Writing Scientific Alt Text
Singh, N., Wang, L. L., & Bragg, J. (2024) · Proceedings of the 29th International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces · doi:10.1145/3640543.3645212 · Cited by 42 · see citing works
“Mack et al. [30] observed that templates helped authors write better alt text compared with automatically generated options, which were brief and regarded by authors as a gold standard, leading to reduced final quality.”
BackgroundDas, M., Fiannaca, A., Morris, M. R., Kane, S., & Bennett, C. L. (2024) · International Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642325 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
“…have attempted to scale alt text with different approaches including captioning AI models [3, 16, 88], gathering alt text from different sources [41], crowdsourcing [77], reverse image searches [45], visual question-answering [13], and supporting content creators in authoring alt texts [9, 57].”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialSelf-citationMcDonnell, E. J., Eagle, T., Sinlapanuntakul, P., Moon, S. H., Ringland, K. E., Froehlich, J. E., & Findlater, L. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642177 · Cited by 34 · see citing works
“Analogously, past work has found that users of alt text, another user-created digital access tool, have a variety of preferences [66, 89].”
BackgroundWeb accessibility barriers and their cross-disability impact in eSystems: A scoping review
Droutsas, N., Spyridonis, F., Daylamani-Zad, D., & Ghinea, G. (2024) · Computer Standards & Interfaces · doi:10.1016/j.csi.2024.103923 · Cited by 41 · see citing works
Chintalapati, S. S., Bragg, J., & Wang, L. L. (2022) · Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3517428.3544796 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Context-Aware Image Descriptions for Web Accessibility
Mohanbabu, A. G., & Pavel, A. (2024) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675658 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
“To make images accessible, prior research proposed human-powered [7, 8, 30, 49, 55, 62], automated [1, 2, 8, 30, 34, 36, 65], and hybrid approaches [8, 30, 46, 57] to craft descriptions for images.”
Nair, V., Zhu, H. '., & Smith, B. A. (2023) · Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3581302 · Cited by 29 · see citing works
“Some researchers have focused on presentingmethods and frameworks [2, 12, 30, 51, 52] for authoring higher-quality alt text as well as on improving the quality of auto-generated descriptions [13, 28, 49, 66].”
BackgroundJiang, L., Jung, C., Phutane, M., Stangl, A. J., & Azenkot, S. (2024) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3613904.3642238 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“Image description guidelines (e.g., [17, 44, 71, 75, 94, 123]) instruct description creators to give information about an image in relation to its context [17, 94] and describe the predominant content (e.g., objects, people, text, scenery) to aid understanding [10, 71, 111].”
CrossA11y: Identifying Video Accessibility Issues via Cross-modal Grounding
Liu, X., Wang, R., Li, D., Chen, X., & Pavel, A. (2022) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/3526113.3545703 · Cited by 25 · see citing works
“Prior research [22] on alt text authoring showed that authors wrote signifcantly lower quality alt text when starting with automatic alt text compared to starting with a blank box.”
BackgroundCodeA11y: Making AI Coding Assistants Useful for Accessible Web Development
Mowar, P., Peng, Y.-H., Wu, J., Steinfeld, A., & Bigham, J. P. (2025) · Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3706598.3713335 · Cited by 31 · see citing works
Toward supporting quality alt text in computing publications
Williams, C., de Greef, L., Harris, E., Findlater, L., Pavel, A., & Bennett, C. (2022) · Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference · doi:10.1145/3493612.3520449 · Cited by 26 · see citing works
“Accessibility research has examined the prevalence and tooling for alternative (alt) text in contexts like social media, news outlets, and presentations [5, 24, 25, 32, 33, 38, 43, 44, 46, 47, 52, 53, 59].”
BackgroundInfluentialEdwards, E. J., Gilbert, M., Blank, E., & Branham, S. M. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3587469 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
Kumar, A., & Wang, L. L. (2024) · The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675634 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“Although we initially intended to use frameworks from prior work [18, 20, 39] to assess alt-text quality, we found that many alt-texts extracted from our data sample were at or below the lowest evaluative levels of these frameworks.”
MethodEngaging with Children's Artwork in Mixed Visual-Ability Families
Chheda-Kothary, A., Wobbrock, J. O., & Froehlich, J. E. (2024) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675613 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“There is a rich history of work in human-computer interaction (HCI) investigating nonvisual representations of art and images for blind and low-vision (BLV) people [9, 22, 31, 42, 48, 50, 61, 65].”
BackgroundJain, G., Hindi, B., Courtien, C., Xu, X. Y. T., Wyrick, C., Malcolm, M., & Smith, B. A. (2023) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/3586183.3606830 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“Many researchers have studied ways to create efective descriptions for BLV people, by proposing methods and guidelines for authoring descriptions [3, 6, 19, 42, 45, 72, 78] as well as by introducing tools to support and automate the process [9, 20, 63, 77, 78, 82].”
BackgroundEmara, I. H. (2023) · International Journal of Qualitative Methods · doi:10.1177/16094069231214390 · Cited by 19 · see citing works
“In the future, researchers with visual impairment might have the possibility to grasp data displayed visually by relying on alternative text (alt-text) (Mack et al., 2021; Wu et al., 2017).”
BackgroundTab to Autocomplete: The Effects of AI Coding Assistants on Web Accessibility
Mowar, P., Peng, Y.-H., Steinfeld, A. M., & Bigham, J. P. (2024) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3663548.3688513 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
WATAA: Web Alternative Text Authoring Assistant for Improving Web Content Accessibility
Jeong, H., Chun, M., Lee, H., Oh, S., & Jung, H. (2023) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/3581754.3584127 · Cited by 15 · see citing works
“Specifically, researchers proposed alt text authoring methods [8, 19, 22].”
MethodMatplotAlt: A Python Library for Adding Alt Text to Matplotlib Figures in Computational Notebooks
Nylund, K., Mankoff, J. C., & Potluri, V. (2025) · Computer Graphics Forum · doi:10.1111/cgf.70119 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
“They find that most users prefer the extra assistance provided by templates, and that they help users know what to include in alt text [MCLM21].”
Author Reflections on Creating Accessible Academic Papers
Menzies, R., Tigwell, G. W., & Crabb, M. (2022) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3546195 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“[42] have both developed tools to support making appropriate image descriptions for diferent types of content elements and Ferres et al.”
MethodAuthoring accessible media content on social networks
Pereira, L. S., Coelho, J., Rodrigues, A., Guerreiro, J., Guerreiro, T., & Duarte, C. (2022) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3517428.3544882 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“[22] proposed two types of prototype interfaces to facilitate authoring of alternative descriptions for images in Power Point presentations, as well as providing feedback for automatic alternative descriptions.”
BackgroundAlt4Blind: A User Interface to Simplify Charts Alt-Text Creation
Moured, O., Farooqui, S. A., Müller, K., Fadaeijouybari, S., Schwarz, T., Javed, M., & Stiefelhagen, R. (2024) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-62846-7_35 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
“Malicious” Pictorials: How Alt Text Matters to Screen Reader Users' Experience of Image-Dense Media
Yin, A., Sogani, R., Oewel, B., Phan, K., Park, J. S. Y., Yeo, M. A., Yazzolino, L. A., Arcos, K., Abdolrahmani, A., Blank, E., et al. (2024) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3643834.3660747 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“Another study concludes that manually editing AI-generated descriptions results in significantly lower quality alt text than starting from scratch [22].”
BackgroundImproving the Accessibility of Screen-Shared Presentations by Enabling Concurrent Exploration
Fan, D., Junuzovic, S., Tang, J. C., & Jaeger, T. F. (2023) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3597638.3608411 · Cited by 9 · see citing works
“For slide presentations, Microsoft PowerPoint can automatically generate alt-text [39, 44], although the generated descriptions have been reported to preclude or inadequately prioritize important contextual and emotional qualities [39, 71].”
Method"It's like Goldilocks:" Bespoke Slides for Fluctuating Audience Access Needs
Mack, K. A., Glazko, K. S., Islam, J., Hofmann, M., & Mankoff, J. (2024) · The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675640 · Cited by 7 · see citing works
“Prior research has investigated how people who are blind and visually impaired (BVI) can consume and present slides [20, 32, 34] and how to improve caption-users’ experience consuming presentations [41].”
BackgroundMethodSelf-citationPaper to HTML: A Publicly Available Web Tool for Converting Scientific Pdfs into Accessible HTML
Wang, L. L., Bragg, J., & Weld, D. S. (2022) · ACM SIGACCESS Accessibility and Computing · doi:10.1145/3582298.3582299 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Crowdsourcing Thumbnail Captions: Data Collection and Validation
Aguirre, C., Cao, S., Mahmood, A., & Huang, C.-M. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Interactive Intelligent Systems · doi:10.1145/3589346 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Prior work has illustrated that access to captions with multiple levels of detail is beneicial to BVI individuals [31, 44, 46]; future work may explore new methods and mechanisms to support the efective collection of captions at additional levels of detailÐincluding both less and more detail than typical alt text.”
BackgroundInfluentialAccessibility of Profile Pictures: Alt Text and Beyond to Express Identity Online
Mott, M. E., Tang, J. C., & Cutrell, E. B. (2023) · CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3544548.3580710 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
“Researchers and practitioners in the accessibility community have spent considerable efort discovering how to provide screen reader users access to visual information present in images [4, 6, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27, 28, 35].”
BackgroundMethodSelf-citationA Descriptive Review of Image Datasets for Accessible Alternative Descriptions in STEM Domains
Cardia, M., Buzzi, M., Galesi, G., & Leporini, B. (2025) · Proceedings of the 16th Biannual Conference of the Italian SIGCHI Chapter · doi:10.1145/3750069.3750122 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Therefore, preparing alternative and narrative descriptions is not an easy task and requires competence and accuracy, especially in the STEM field [21, 22].”
Increasing Agency of Screen-Reader Users in Consuming Information From Online Data Visualizations
Sharif, A., Zhang, A. M., & Wobbrock, J. O. (2025) · International Web for All Conference (W4A) · doi:10.1145/3744257.3744262 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
“Alternative text (“alt-text”) is one of the most widely used techniques to provide screen-reader users with a description of visual content [48, 52, 54].”
Open access journals lack image accessibility guidelines
Whitney, K. S., Perrone, J. D., & Bahlai, C. A. (2024) · Quantitative Science Studies · doi:10.1162/qss_a_00338 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Salous, M., Lange, D., von Reeken, T., Wolters, M. K., Heuten, W., Boll, S., & Abdenebaoui, L. (2025) · IEEE Access · doi:10.1109/access.2025.3605490 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Accessible Text Descriptions for UpSet Plots
McNutt, A. M., McCracken, M. K., Eliza, I. J., Hajas, D., Wagoner, J., Lanza, N., Wilburn, J., Creem-Regehr, S. H., & Lex, A. (2025) · Computer Graphics Forum · doi:10.1111/cgf.70102 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
“Mack et al. [MCLM21] show that users like summaries or content overviews in addition to more contextual descriptions.”
AltChart: Enhancing VLM-Based Chart Summarization Through Multi-pretext Tasks
Moured, O., Zhang, J., Sarfraz, M. S., & Stiefelhagen, R. (2024) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-70533-5_21 · Cited by 5 · see citing works
Exploring the shopping experiences of visually impaired consumers: a scoping literature review
Thadikaran, G. B., & Singh, S. K. (2025) · Journal of Indian Business Research · doi:10.1108/jibr-09-2023-0289 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Kim, S., Lee, S., Kim, K., & Oh, U. (2024) · ACM International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI) · doi:10.1145/3640543.3645154 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“Many researchers studied guidelines for writing alternative texts (alt texts) for people with visual impairments to improve image accessibility [11, 12, 23, 29, 35].”
BackgroundCho, J., & Kim, H. J. (2023) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3544549.3585706 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“To investigate this matter, Mack et al. [6] conducted an interview on the preferences of screen reader users regarding Descriptiveness versus Conciseness in alt text.”
BackgroundInfluentialJiang, L., Zhu, A., & Oppegaard, B. (2025) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3706599.3719966 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“Researchers have also explored how to scaffold and support non-experts in writing effective descriptions [20, 23, 38].”
InfluentialDroutsas, N., Spyridonis, F., Daylamani-Zad, D., & Ghinea, G. (2025) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2025.2499659 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
“…size that does not allow for broader generalizations to be made; however, it is consistent with previous Web accessibility studies (e.g., Muehlbradt and Kane, 2022; Mack et al., 2021; Aizpurua et al., 2016; Lee and Ashok, 2022), where sample sizes are small for a variety of documented reasons.”
InfluentialRaees, M., Iwamoto, Y., Papangelis, K., Heard, J., & Tigwell, G. W. (2026) · arXiv · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2602.08937 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Prior work investigates several challenges in making content accessible to screen reader users [66, 45, 73].”
InfluentialIwamoto, Y., Raees, M., Heard, J., & Tigwell, G. W. (2025) · Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3759763 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“However, automated alt text generation often becomes impractical [15, 18], as authors tend to rely heavily on auto-generated content without image analysis.”
InfluentialAccessible Text Descriptions for UpSet Plots
Eliza, I. J., Wagoner, J., Wilburn, J., Lanza, N., Hajas, D., & Lex, A. (2024) · doi:10.1109/accessviz64636.2024.00005 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“The text descriptions found in practice often provide very little information [13, 19, 21], and users are unable to dig deeper into the data behind the visualization.”
MVAuLT: Authoring Interpretive Alt Text for Music Videos
Zhong, V., Chen, A. S., Rajesh, D., Gruender, M., & Ringland, K. E. (2025) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3663547.3759691 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Mack et al. introduced a prototype interface for alt text authoring in the context of single images, comparing workflows where authors edited automatically generated descriptions or created descriptions from scratch [8].”
CoSight: Exploring Viewer Contributions to Online Video Accessibility Through Descriptive Commenting
Wang, R., Liu, X., Wang, B., Zhang, W., Liao, Z., Li, Z., Pavel, A., & Chen, X. (2025) · ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) · doi:10.1145/3746059.3747747 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“…authoring efforts by supporting human to modify a generate result, researchers should also be cautious when involving AI in nudging for accessibility, as prior research on alt text [49] authoring has revealed that representing AI-generated info to assist content authoring may decrease the quality.”
SafetyBuilder: An AR-based Framework for In-situ AI-assisted Creation of Child Safety Protection
Li, J., Li, Z., Chen, S., Wang, Z., Zhang, Y., Fan, M., & He, L. (2026) · Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive Mobile Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies · doi:10.1145/3789690 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“VLM-based systems provide not only object recognition but also an understanding of the broader scene, allowing them to describe key elements ( e.g., objects, people, text, scenery) in relation to their context [50, 61, 62].”
A Systematic Survey on Image Description Techniques for STEM Domains
Cardia, M., Angileri, L., Buzzi, M., Galesi, G., & Leporini, B. (2026) · International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1080/10447318.2026.2668031 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Haque, A., & Hong, J. (2026) · Designing Interactive Systems Conference · doi:10.1145/3800645.3812965 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
“Similarly, work on accessible authoring tools encourages presenters to include alternative text and logical reading orders when preparing slides [4, 12, 19].”
Using A Neural Network to Generate Images When Teaching Students to Develop an Alternative Text
Kosova, Y., Redkokosh, K. I., & Mikheyev, P. O. (2024) · Open Education · doi:10.21686/1818-4243-2024-1-9-20 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
Enhancing Accessibility in Publishing: Leveraging GAI for Effective Alt-Text Solutions
Morelli, C. (2025) · Technology for Inclusion and Participation for All: Recent Achievements and Future Directions · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-01632-4_48
Wegener, A., Kretzer, F., Nicolay, T. D., & Maedche, A. (2025) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3663547.3759747
“Recent work has explored how AI might improve aspects such as alt-text generation [34, 39], though challenges in quality and consistency persist [5].”
Nunes, E. H. D. C., de Castro, K. V. G., de Lima, V. S., Morais, A. J. A., & Monteiro, I. T. (2025) · Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais (IHC) · doi:10.5753/ihc.2025.10829
“Algumas pesquisas investigam como criar boas descrições [Mack et al. 2021], enquanto outras desenvolvem bases de dados com imagens já descritas [Sharma et al. 2018] ou usam inteligência artifcial para ajudar nessa tarefa [Singh et al. 2024].”
Sacramento, C., Ferreira, S. B. L., Braz, P., dos Remedios, S. E. L., & Marques, J. M. D. S. (2025) · Simpósio Brasileiro de Fatores Humanos em Sistemas Computacionais (IHC) · doi:10.5753/ihc.2025.10802
Составление альтернативного текста к изображениям с использованием больших языковых моделей
Kosova, E. A., & Redkokosh, K. I. (2024) · Sovremennye informacionnye tehnologii i IT-obrazovanie. · doi:10.25559/sitito.020.202403.699-714
Alternative Textual Description
Sharif, A. (2026) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-07186-6_3
Access to Interpretation: How Formal Cues Ground Interpretive Alt Text for Paintings
Zhong, V., Jiang, L., & Ringland, K. E. (2026) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3772363.3798632
“Rather than attempting to eliminate interpretation, these perspectives call for making interpretive processes explicit and accountable, allowing readers to understand how meaning is being constructed from visual features [8, 12, 14].”
Jones, J. R., & Echeles, J. (2026) · Nurse Educator · doi:10.1097/nne.0000000000002183
Droutsas, N., Spyridonis, F., Daylamani-Zad, D., Glass, P. E., & Ghinea, G. (2026) · Behaviour and Information Technology · doi:10.1080/0144929x.2026.2678381
Kimogol, S. S., Nachtnebel, D. A., Safari, M. C., & Sanderson, N. C. (2026) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-29653-5_17
Optimizing Alt Text Design through Human-LLM Collaboration
Kosova, Y., & Redkokosh, K. I. (2026) · Lecture notes in networks and systems · doi:10.1007/978-3-032-27834-0_24
Turkarslan, A., Thakkar, V., Tekle, R., Chen*, T., Martinez, J. J., & Mankoff, J. C. (2026) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3797867.3829048
Song, H., Shin, M., Choi, J., Kim, Y., Jang, K., Suh, B., & Jung, H. (2026) · Proceedings of the 2026 28th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3797867.3828985
Synthesizing and Evaluating a Visual Feedback Framework for Accessible Content Creation
Zhang, L., Hua, A., & Findlater, L. (2026) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3797867.3829025
Liu, S., Zhang, J., Fayed, M. E. M. K., Zhao, Y., Premkumar, P., Adams, A. T., & Starner, T. E. (2026) · International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) · doi:10.1145/3797867.3841231
- Authors
- Mack, K., Cutrell, E., Lee, B., & Morris, M. R.
- Affiliations
- Microsoft (United States) (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-10-17
- Pages
- 1-14
- OpenAlex
- W3193568238
- Semantic Scholar
- f617cec6d8293936e9c52cf3496582a37b38c6c7
- Cited by
- 58
- References
- 19
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 16 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 6
- FWCI
- 10.81
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS) (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Occupational Therapy › Assistive Technology in Communication and Mobility
- Keywords
- alt text, screen readers, accessibility, PowerPoint, author experience, image accessibility
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
