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What Makes Videos Accessible to Blind and Visually Impaired People?

Published: 07 May 2021 Publication History

Abstract

User-generated videos are an increasingly important source of information online, yet most online videos are inaccessible to blind and visually impaired (BVI) people. To find videos that are accessible, or understandable without additional description of the visual content, BVI people in our formative studies reported that they used a time-consuming trial-and-error approach: clicking on a video, watching a portion, leaving the video, and repeating the process. BVI people also reported video accessibility heuristics that characterize accessible and inaccessible videos. We instantiate 7 of the identified heuristics (2 audio-related, 2 video-related, and 3 audio-visual) as automated metrics to assess video accessibility. We collected a dataset of accessibility ratings of videos by BVI people and found that our automatic video accessibility metrics correlated with the accessibility ratings (Adjusted R2 = 0.642). We augmented a video search interface with our video accessibility metrics and predictions. BVI people using our augmented video search interface selected an accessible video more efficiently than when using the original search interface. By integrating video accessibility metrics, video hosting platforms could help people surface accessible videos and encourage content creators to author more accessible products, improving video accessibility for all.

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
May 2021
10862 pages
ISBN:9781450380966
DOI:10.1145/3411764
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Published: 07 May 2021

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  1. accessibility
  2. blind
  3. online videos
  4. visual impairments

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  • (2024)VoiceMath: Enhancing Accessibility in STEM Education through Formulae Transcription in Video LecturesProceedings of the 2024 the 16th International Conference on Education Technology and Computers10.1145/3702163.3702458(477-485)Online publication date: 18-Sep-2024
  • (2024)Accessibility Evaluation of Web Systems for People with Visual Impairments: Findings from a Literature SurveyProceedings of the XXIII Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3702038.3702090(1-13)Online publication date: 7-Oct-2024
  • (2024)Please Understand My Disability: An Analysis of YouTubers' Discourse on Disability ChallengesProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36869468:CSCW2(1-25)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
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