Accessible Images in Computer Science Journals

Visual content in computer science academic papers is a critical information source, but it presents specific barriers to full readability by people with visual impairments. We aimed to assess current image publishing practices, policies and submission guidelines related to accessibility in a sample of ten highly cited computer science journals. We determined whether the journals claimed to follow an accessibility policy and we reviewed their submission policy and their guidelines related to the visual content, comparing them with good accessibility practices; we manually checked the application of the accessibility policy in one article for each journal. The evaluation shows that the actual practices of image submission in highly cited computer science journals do not fulfill basic recommendations on accessibility. Images within the analyzed articles lack alternative descriptions, even in the case of journals claiming to follow an accessibility policy. Incoherencies between the technical suggestions of image submission and their application in published papers also emerged. Consequently, the visual information of scientific articles is not accessible to people with visual disabilities.