IDEA

2025

1. Accessibility Heuristics for Vibe Coding Interfaces

   Shalini Madan, Sreelakshmi Surabiyil, and Venkatesh Potluri

   In Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, Denver, CO, USA, 2025

   Abs DOI Bib PDF

   AI coding tools are transforming programming, shifting it from a highly editorial process into a conversational activity. Popular vibe coding tools such as Replit and Cursor integrate natural language interfaces with traditional development environments. While these tools promise simplicity, increased productivity, and automation, they also introduce new accessibility challenges for blind or visually impaired (BVI) developers. A systematic identification of these accessibility challenges necessitates comprehensive guidelines that account for the complex interactions in these tools. To address this need, we develop accessibility heuristics to assess the accessibility of AI conversational programming tools. Our heuristics combine web accessibility guidelines, best practices for designing conversational interfaces, and accessibility needs specific to BVI developers. Our evaluation of three widely used conversational programming tools shows that most accessibility challenges arise from complex keyboard interactions, poor focus management, and insufficient feedback and access to the various actions and outputs of the tools.

   @inproceedings{Madan:2025:AccessibilityHeuristics,
     author = {Madan, Shalini and Surabiyil, Sreelakshmi and Potluri, Venkatesh},
     title = {Accessibility Heuristics for Vibe Coding Interfaces},
     year = {2025},
     isbn = {979-8-4007-0676-9/2025/10},
     publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
     address = {New York, NY, USA},
     url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3663547.3759729},
     doi = {10.1145/3663547.3759729},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility},
     numpages = {5},
     keywords = {Heuristics, Developer Tools, AI Coding Assistants},
     location = {Denver, CO, USA},
     series = {ASSETS '25},
   }

2. MatplotAlt: A Python Library for Adding Alt Text to Matplotlib Figures in Computational Notebooks

   Kai Nylund, Jennifer Mankoff, and Venkatesh Potluri

   Computer Graphics Forum, 2025

   Abs DOI Bib Code Website

   We present MatplotAlt, an open-source Python package for easily adding alternative text to Matplotlib figures. MatplotAlt equips Jupyter notebook authors to automatically generate and surface chart descriptions with a single line of code or command, and supports a range of options that allow users to customize the generation and display of captions based on their preferences and accessibility needs. Our evaluation indicates that MatplotAlt’s heuristic and LLM-based methods to generate alt text can create accurate long-form descriptions of both simple univariate and complex Matplotlib figures. We find that state-of-the-art LLMs still struggle with factual errors when describing charts, and improve the accuracy of our descriptions by prompting GPT4-turbo with heuristic-based alt text or data tables parsed from the Matplotlib figure.

   @article{Knylund:2025:MatPlotAlt,
     author = {Nylund, Kai and Mankoff, Jennifer and Potluri, Venkatesh},
     title = {MatplotAlt: A Python Library for Adding Alt Text to Matplotlib Figures in Computational Notebooks},
     journal = {Computer Graphics Forum},
     volume = {44},
     number = {3},
     pages = {e70119},
     doi = {https://doi.org/10.1111/cgf.70119},
     url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cgf.70119},
     eprint = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cgf.70119},
     year = {2025},
   }

3. Demo of RAVEN: Realtime Accessibility in Virtual ENvironments for Blind and Low-Vision People

   Xinyun Cao, Kexin Phyllis Ju, Chenglin Li, Venkatesh Potluri, and Dhruv Jain

   2025

   Abs Bib

   As virtual 3D environments become prevalent, enabling presence and spatial exploration, equitable access is crucial for blind and low-vision (BLV) users.

   @article{caodemo,
     title = {Demo of RAVEN: Realtime Accessibility in Virtual ENvironments for Blind and Low-Vision People},
     author = {Cao, Xinyun and Ju, Kexin Phyllis and Li, Chenglin and Potluri, Venkatesh and Jain, Dhruv},
     year = {2025},
     publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
     address = {New York, NY, USA},
   }

2023

1. Notably Inaccessible – Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility

   Venkatesh Potluri^*, Sudheesh Singanamalla^*, Firn Tieanklin, and Jennifer Mankoff

   In Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, New York, NY, USA, 2023

   * Potluri and Singanamalla contributed equally to this work.

   DOI arXiv Bib Code Website

   @inproceedings{Potluri:2023:Notably-Inaccessible,
     author = {Potluri, Venkatesh and Singanamalla, Sudheesh and Tieanklin, Firn and Mankoff, Jennifer},
     title = {Notably Inaccessible – Data Driven Understanding of Data Science Notebook (In)Accessibility},
     year = {2023},
     isbn = {979-8-4007-0220-4/23/10},
     publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
     address = {New York, NY, USA},
     doi = {10.1145/3597638.3608417},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 25th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility},
     location = {New York, NY, USA},
     series = {ASSETS '23},
     note = {* Potluri and Singanamalla contributed equally to this work.},
   }

2022

1. CodeWalk: Facilitating Shared Awareness in Mixed-Ability Collaborative Software Development

   Venkatesh Potluri^*, Maulishree Pandey^*, Andrew Begel, Michael Barnett, and Scott Reitherman

   In Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, Athens, Greece, 2022

   * Potluri and Pandey contributed equally to this work.

   DOI Bib

   @inproceedings{potluri:2022:CodeWalk,
     author = {Potluri, Venkatesh and Pandey, Maulishree and Begel, Andrew and Barnett, Michael and Reitherman, Scott},
     title = {{CodeWalk}: Facilitating Shared Awareness in Mixed-Ability Collaborative
                    Software Development},
     year = {2022},
     isbn = {9781450392587},
     publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
     address = {New York, NY, USA},
     doi = {10.1145/3517428.3544812},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on
                    Computers and Accessibility},
     articleno = {20},
     numpages = {16},
     keywords = {blind or visually impaired, sound effects, collaboration,
                    accessibility, software developers, workspace awareness},
     location = {Athens, Greece},
     series = {ASSETS '22},
     note = {* Potluri and Pandey contributed equally to this work.},
   }

2. PSST: Enabling Blind or Visually Impaired Developers to Author Sonifications of Streaming Sensor Data

   Venkatesh Potluri, John Thompson, James Devine, Bongshin Lee, Nora Morsi, and 3 more authors

   In Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology, Bend, OR, USA, 2022

   Abs DOI Bib

   We present the first toolkit that equips blind and visually impaired (BVI) developers with the tools to create accessible data displays. Called PSST (Physical computing Streaming Sensor data Toolkit), it enables BVI developers to understand the data generated by sensors from a mouse to a micro:bit physical computing platform. By assuming visual abilities, earlier efforts to make physical computing accessible fail to address the need for BVI developers to access sensor data. PSST enables BVI developers to understand real-time, real-world sensor data by providing control over what should be displayed, as well as when to display and how to display sensor data. PSST supports filtering based on raw or calculated values, highlighting, and transformation of data. Output formats include tonal sonification, nonspeech audio files, speech, and SVGs for laser cutting. We validate PSST through a series of demonstrations and a user study with BVI developers.

   @inproceedings{Potluri:2022:PSST,
     author = {Potluri, Venkatesh and Thompson, John and Devine, James and Lee, Bongshin and Morsi, Nora and De Halleux, Peli and Hodges, Steve and Mankoff, Jennifer},
     title = {{PSST}: Enabling Blind or Visually Impaired Developers to Author
                    Sonifications of Streaming Sensor Data},
     year = {2022},
     isbn = {9781450393201},
     publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
     address = {New York, NY, USA},
     doi = {10.1145/3526113.3545700},
     booktitle = {Proceedings of the 35th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface
                    Software and Technology},
     articleno = {46},
     numpages = {13},
     keywords = {Accessibility, Physical Computing, Toolkit, Blind or Visually Impaired
                    (BVI) Programmers},
     location = {Bend, OR, USA},
     series = {UIST '22},
   }