# A Dataset of Alt Texts from HCI Publications: Analyses and Uses Towards Producing More Descriptive Alt Texts of Data Visualizations in Scientific Papers

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.13718 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.13718/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Sep 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [The Semantic Reader Project: Augmenting Scholarly Documents through AI-Powered Interactive Reading Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.14334/) (2023)
- [Line Graphics Digitization: A Step Towards Full Automation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.02065/) (2023)
- [Alt-Text with Context: Improving Accessibility for Images on Twitter](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.14779/) (2023)
- [Grounded Intuition of GPT-Vision's Abilities with Scientific Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.02069/) (2023)
- [AltChart: Enhancing VLM-based Chart Summarization Through Multi-Pretext Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.13580/) (2024)
- [Alt4Blind: A User Interface to Simplify Charts Alt-Text Creation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19111/) (2024)
- [Querying Multimodal Scientific Papers with AI: Practices and Preferences Across Blind, Low-Vision, and Sighted Scientists](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.18514/) (2026)
- [MELLA: Bridging Linguistic Capability and Cultural Groundedness for Low-Resource Language MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.05502/) (2025)
- [MCM-DPO: Multifaceted Cross-Modal Direct Preference Optimization for Alt-text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.00647/) (2025)
- [Benchmark It Yourself (BIY): Preparing a Dataset and Benchmarking AI Models for Scatterplot-Related Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.06071/) (2025)
- [Chart-Supported or Model-Supplied? Examining MLLM-Generated Claims for Accessible Visualization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.25021/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Figures in scientific publications contain important information and results, and alt text is needed for blind and low vision readers to engage with their content. We conduct a study to characterize the semantic content of alt text in HCI publications based on a framework introduced by Lundgard and Satyanarayan. Our study focuses on alt text for graphs, charts, and plots extracted from HCI and accessibility publications; we focus on these communities due to the lack of alt text in papers published outside of these disciplines. We find that the capacity of author-written alt text to fulfill blind and low vision user needs is mixed; for example, only 50% of alt texts in our sample contain information about extrema or outliers, and only 31% contain information about major trends or comparisons conveyed by the graph. We release our collected dataset of author-written alt text, and outline possible ways that it can be used to develop tools and models to assist future authors in writing better alt text. Based on our findings, we also discuss recommendations that can be acted upon by publishers and authors to encourage inclusion of more types of semantic content in alt text.