# Document Navigability: A Need for Print-Impaired

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2206.10253 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.10253/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 1 of its 28 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 21 Jun 2022.

## Builds on (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Improving the Accessibility of Scientific Documents: Current State, User Needs, and a System Solution to Enhance Scientific PDF Accessibility for Blind and Low Vision Users](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00076/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Printed documents continue to be a challenge for blind, low-vision, and other print-disabled (BLV) individuals. In this paper, we focus on the specific problem of (in-)accessibility of internal references to citations, footnotes, figures, tables and equations. While sighted users can flip to the referenced content and flip back in seconds, linear audio narration that BLV individuals rely on makes following these references extremely hard. We propose a vision based technique to locate the referenced content and extract metadata needed to (in subsequent work) inline a content summary into the audio narration. We apply our technique to citations in scientific documents and find it works well both on born-digital as well as scanned documents.