When to Add Human Narration to Photo-Sharing Social Media

Abstract

Social media platforms facilitate communication through sharing photos and videos. The abundance of visual content creates accessibility issues, particularly for people who are blind or have low vision. While assistive technologies like screen readers can help when alt-text for images is provided, synthesized voices lack the human element that is important for social interaction. Here, we investigate when it makes the most sense to use human narration as opposed to a screen reader to describe photos in a social media context. We explore the effects of voice familiarity (i.e., whether you hear the voice of someone you know) and the perspective of the description (i.e., first vs. third person point-of-view (POV)). Preliminary study suggests that users prefer hearing from a person they know when the content is described in first person POV, whereas synthesized voice is preferred for content described in third person POV.

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