“Malicious” Pictorials: How Alt Text Matters to Screen Reader Users' Experience of Image-Dense Media
Open accessAbstract
People who are blind face accessibility and usability barriers every time a digital image author omits or creates uninformative alternative or “alt” text. Often, content creators are simply unaware of screen reader users’ experience and accessibility best practices; there is also a lack of research knowledge about how to design accessible image-dense media, like pictorials. We present (1) a content analysis of 149 pictorials, (2) a thematic analysis of three think-aloud sessions with an expert screen reader user, and (3) practical lessons learned from a co-design workshop with three blind scholars. Our research finds that pictorials are increasingly accessible, but they are still far from providing a usable experience. We identify nine “malicious” alt text patterns that riddle pictorials and three novel accessible alt text patterns to guide authors of image-dense media.
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Existing work shows the need for human subject matter validation for evaluating AI-augmented alt text quality to enhance the interpretation for screen reader users.
“Existing work also shows the need for human subject matter validation for evaluating AI-augmented alt text quality to enhance the interpretation for screen reader users [71, 87].”
From How University Disability Services Professionals Write Image Descriptions for HCI Figures Using Generative AI (2026) · cites this paper as [87]
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- Authors
- Yin, A., Sogani, R., Oewel, B., Phan, K., Park, J. S. Y., Yeo, M. A., Yazzolino, L. A., Arcos, K., Abdolrahmani, A., Blank, E., Gilbert, M. D., & Branham, S. M.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Irvine (US)
- Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi (IN)
- Johns Hopkins University (US)
- University of Maryland, Baltimore County (US)
- Google (United States) (US)
- ORCID
- Venue
- Designing Interactive Systems Conference
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2024-07
- Pages
- 1262-1274
- OpenAlex
- W4400142772
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 23
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 4
- FWCI
- 4.92
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Designing Interactive Systems Conference (publishedVersion, cc-by-nd)
- 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, blind users, pictorials, accessibility, think-aloud
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