Images Speak Volumes: User-Centric Assessment of Image Generation for Accessible Communication

Miriam Anschütz, Tringa Sylaj, Georg Groh


Abstract
Explanatory images play a pivotal role in accessible and easy-to-read (E2R) texts. However, the images available in online databases are not tailored toward the respective texts, and the creation of customized images is expensive. In this large-scale study, we investigated whether text-to-image generation models can close this gap by providing customizable images quickly and easily. We benchmarked seven, four open- and three closed-source, image generation models and provide an extensive evaluation of the resulting images. In addition, we performed a user study with people from the E2R target group to examine whether the images met their requirements. We find that some of the models show remarkable performance, but none of the models are ready to be used at a larger scale without human supervision. Our research is an important step toward facilitating the creation of accessible information for E2R creators and tailoring accessible images to the target group’s needs.
Anthology ID:
2024.tsar-1.4
Volume:
Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Text Simplification, Accessibility and Readability (TSAR 2024)
Month:
November
Year:
2024
Address:
Miami, Florida, USA
Editors:
Matthew Shardlow, Horacio Saggion, Fernando Alva-Manchego, Marcos Zampieri, Kai North, Sanja Štajner, Regina Stodden
Venue:
TSAR
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
27–40
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.tsar-1.4
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Miriam Anschütz, Tringa Sylaj, and Georg Groh. 2024. Images Speak Volumes: User-Centric Assessment of Image Generation for Accessible Communication. In Proceedings of the Third Workshop on Text Simplification, Accessibility and Readability (TSAR 2024), pages 27–40, Miami, Florida, USA. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
Images Speak Volumes: User-Centric Assessment of Image Generation for Accessible Communication (Anschütz et al., TSAR 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.tsar-1.4.pdf