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Accessibility

Requirements and Recommendations

Alt-text is required for all figures, subfigures, and tables in your submission. For more information on writing quality alt-text, please read the SIGACCESS Guide to Describing Figures.

PDF tagging is highly recommended. Tagging your PDF with document structure metadata makes it accessible to screen readers and other assistive technologies. If you do not have access to Adobe Acrobat and that is a blocker for you, Adobe offers a free trial that you can use to tag your document. See the Making PDFs Accessible section below for instructions.


Making Video Figures Accessible

We strongly encourage authors to make their videos (teaser, presentation) accessible by adding text captions to transcribe the audio (to make videos accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing) and audio narration to describe the presented visuals (to make videos accessible to people who are blind or low vision). Authors can refer to the guidelines of video captions and descriptions for more information.


Making Presentations Accessible

We strongly encourage authors to make their (live, recorded) presentations accessible to diverse audiences. For instance, designing slides with high contrast texts or describing slides thoroughly (to make presentations accessible to people who are blind or low vision). We also encourage authors to release their accessible slides (by following the process on making PDFs accessible below). Authors can refer to the Accessible Presentation Guide about how to make your presentation accessible.


Making PDFs Accessible

We strongly encourage you to add accessibility tagging to your PDF using Acrobat Pro DC. If you do not have access to Acrobat Pro, Adobe offers a free trial.

The key steps are:

  1. Set tab order: Select all page thumbnails, right-click > Page Properties, and set Tab Order to “Use Document Structure” so keyboard users can navigate the document.
  2. Open accessibility tools: From the View menu, select Tools > Accessibility.
  3. Add document tags: Select “Autotag Document.” Save beforehand, as tagging may occasionally cause visual elements to shift. Visually scan the paper afterward to confirm nothing has changed.
  4. Check tagging and reading order: Use the “Reading Order” tool to verify that text is read in the correct order, headings are properly marked, figures are identified as figures, and tables are identified as tables.
  5. Add figure descriptions (alt-text): Use “Set Alternate Text” to provide alternative text for each figure. See the SIGACCESS Guide to Describing Figures for guidance. Alt-text should convey the equivalent information of the image itself, not repeat the caption.
  6. Mark up tables: Use the Table Editor to ensure header cells are marked as “TH” and data cells as “TD,” with appropriate scope for header cells.
  7. Set title and language: Under File > Properties, fill in the document title, set the Initial View to show the document title, and set the language to English.
  8. Run accessibility check: Select “Full Check” from the accessibility tools to identify any remaining issues.

Note: “Undo” is not well supported in Acrobat Pro, so save often!

For a more detailed walkthrough with screenshots, refer to the SIGACCESS Accessible PDF Author Guide.

Accessibility Chairs

accessibility2026@uist.org