MAP: A Benchmark on Multimodal Accessibility Planning for Real World Places

We introduce MAP, the first benchmark to evaluate multimodal AI systems as assistants for users with accessibility requirements when planning visits to places in the real world. In our evaluation, systems are presented with requests to verify or recommend a point of interest meeting an accessibility requirement. MAP contains two novel assessments: Claim verification for accessibility planning assesses if information on places and stated accessibility features is supported and identifies places that satisfy requested accessibility features. Visual evidence retrieval for accessibility planning checks if a multimodal AI system can select visual evidence for the requested place and accessibility feature. Our methodology supports comparison of AI systems in a setting where place information and accessibility information can change over time by evaluating systems and refreshing ground truth data at scheduled times. The benchmark is based on automatic rating and human rating for a proportion of responses.

MIDAL: A Dataset of Math Image Descriptions for Accessible Learning

Many open educational resources are lacking in accessibility, especially in-depth image descriptions. In subjects like Science and Mathematics, however, it can be particularly difficult to write image descriptions since there can be many complicated expressions and names depending upon the course level. To help fill that gap in a small way, we introduce Math Image Descriptions for Accessible Learning (MIDAL), a math image-description dataset of 2,020 mathematical images spanning multiple educational levels, to aid in training vision language models to create image descriptions following accessibility best practices. We hope MIDAL is a valuable resource in enhancing the conversation and innovation regarding accessibility of STEM content in higher education. This dataset is however not just limited in math description generation but can also be used to fine-tune language models that can have improved mathematical reasoning and answers.

Evaluating Multimodal LLMs across Text and Audio Modalities for Accessible Disaster Assistance

Effective disaster risk communication is a foundational humanitarian challenge, yet current emergency infrastructure fails to meet the needs of individuals with access and functional needs, including hard-of-hearing individuals, pregnant women, mothers with toddlers, and elderly individuals with dementia. Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Multi-Modal Large Language Models (MM-LLMs), demonstrate powerful capabilities to serve diverse users across text, audio, image, and video modalities within a single unified system, such as a chatbot. However, their suitability for deployment rests on a property that receives limited scrutiny, i.e., whether these systems produce consistent, actionable outputs regardless of the modality through which a user communicates. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive analysis to understand the status of open-weight MM-LLMs using real emergency alert scenarios across four different vulnerable personas. These state-of-the-art (SOTA) models are evaluated on consistency of responses across text and audio modalities when the same task scenario is given. Findings indicate that no model achieves reliable consistency across modalities, and that performance gaps are heightened for personas with access needs, introducing modality-dependent inequity that undermines the humanitarian value of these systems. These results inform concrete design recommendations for building equitable, trustworthy, and inclusive AI tools for disaster risk communication.

From Plots to Words: Model-Aware Multimodal Explanations as a Foundation for Accessible, Non-Visual Interaction

Multimodal large language models are increasingly used in interactive systems, yet ensuring consistent, trustworthy reasoning across heterogeneous modalities remains challenging. We present a context-aware, multi-agent framework that integrates textual queries, numerical data, visual representations, and model-derived signals for explainable time-series forecasting. A distinctive feature is that it turns predominantly visual forecasting outputs (e.g., trend plots) into structured, model-aware textual explanations. We argue that this makes the approach a natural foundation for non-visual, accessible interaction of particular relevance to blind and visually impaired users, for whom plot-centric interfaces are largely inaccessible. The framework supports three progressively richer pipelines (baseline, interpretable, explainable), enabling systematic comparison of unimodal, perception-driven, and model-aware responses. In an exploratory evaluation using an LLM-based judge as an early-stage proxy for human assessment, the explainable configuration improves overall explanation quality by up to 32% over a numerical baseline, with notable gains in trustworthiness and model awareness. We position user-centered validation with target users, including screen-reader and speech-interface users, as the essential next step rather than a claim established here.

VisionAssist: An Open-Source Smartphone Assistant for AI-Based Visual Accessibility

People with low vision often face challenges in performing everyday tasks that require interpreting visual information. We present \textbf{VisionAssist}, an open-source mobile application designed to improve independence by providing AI-powered visual assistance through a smartphone. The application integrates three complementary functionalities within a single interface. First, it enables users to locate specific objects by analyzing the live camera feed. Second, it generates spoken descriptions of captured images, allowing users to identify visual content such as food labels, documents, and everyday objects. Third, it integrates with the smartphone's contacts and calendar to facilitate emergency calls and provide voice-based reminders. The application supports hands-free interaction through voice commands and delivers all feedback using text-to-speech synthesis, making it fully accessible to users with visual impairments. By combining multiple assistive services into a unified platform and releasing the project as open-source software, the proposed solution aims to encourage community contributions and accelerate the development of accessible technologies. The source code is publicly available at: https://github.com/AOzlemC/LowVisionProject.git

Andha-Dhun: A First Look at Audio Descriptions in Hindi

Audio Descriptions (ADs) narrate visual content for Blind and Low Vision (BLV) audiences during gaps in audiovisual media. There is growing momentum around ADs in movies and TV shows, and with mandates from India's Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC), there is a need to expand ADs beyond English. Yet, there is no work that generates ADs for any Indian language. To address this gap, we present the first systematic study of ADs in Hindi, contributing to aspects such as data, generation, and evaluation. We introduce Andha-Dhun, the first dataset of human-authored Hindi ADs collected from 8 full-length movies. We explore two approaches for generating ADs in Hindi: (i) directly from English dense video descriptions, and (ii) translating English ADs into Hindi. We evaluate these approaches using perplexity and LLM-as-a-judge metrics to assess fluency and quality respectively. We also analyze movies that have both English and Hindi human-authored ADs and find that naive translation introduces artifacts and narrows diversity compared to original Hindi ADs. Direct machine translation fails to adapt cultural references, while human-translated ADs do better but still fall short. Our findings emphasize that the purpose of Hindi ADs is accessibility for Indian BLV audiences, and that this requires adapting content for the audience more than strict fidelity to the source.