Chrome Will Now Use AI Computer Vision To Describe Images On Screen For Blind Users

The Internet can be hard for blind people or those with visual hindrances to navigate. After all, most content online is visual and, unless website use alt text on images, even screen readers and Braille accessories can't help. So now, Chrome is trying to.

Reuters

Google just announced a new feature for its Chrome browser that should help people with visual disabilities be a little more independent online. The browser will now use machine learning to recognize what images on the screen are, and offer verbal descriptions of what they depict.

It's an offshoot of the already-existing feature that lets users search for images by keyword, where the description of the image is auto-generated using computer vision.

"The unfortunate state right now is that there are still millions and millions of unlabeled images across the web," said Laura Allen, a senior program manager on the Chrome accessibility team. She has low vision herself, so she understands what people like her go through everyday.

Indian Association for the Blind

"When you're navigating with a screen reader or a Braille display, when you get to one of those images, you'll actually just basically hear 'image' or 'unlabeled graphic,' or my favorite, a super long string of numbers which is the file name, which is just totally irrelevant."

So how would this new feature work? One example offered could be "Appears to be fruits and vegetables at the market", when the picture is of a stall at the market. All of the descriptions are read as "appears to be" so users remember these are spouted by a computer and there is a margin for error.

Wikimedia Commons

The feature is now available to users with screen readers or Braille output devices. To turn it on, you need to navigate to the Settings menu of Chrome, go to Advanced at the bottom, and find the Accessibility section. From there you can enable "Get image descriptions from Google."