Monalika Padma Reddy
Author directory2026
Are We There Yet? Assessing Computer-Use Agents for Blind Users’ Accessible Interaction with Desktop Applications
Satwik Ram Kodandaram | Monalika Padma Reddy | Xiaojun Bi | Jiawei Zhou | I. Ramakrishnan | Vikas Ashok
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Satwik Ram Kodandaram | Monalika Padma Reddy | Xiaojun Bi | Jiawei Zhou | I. Ramakrishnan | Vikas Ashok
Proceedings of the 2026 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Computer-use agents are emerging as a paradigm for agentic human-AI interaction, combining language reasoning with multimodal interface grounding to operate GUIs. Yet their effectiveness for blind screen-reader users in real-world desktop workflows remains unclear. We present a three-week diary study with 8 blind users using OLLA, a screen-reader accessible CUA prototype, collecting 1,258commands across 12 applications with screenshots, UI trees, model responses, and action traces. We evaluate GPT-5 during deployment and re-execute the same commands with four additional models. GPT-5 achieved the highest success rate at 52.5%. Trace analysis reveals grounding, planning, constraint-tracking, and termination failures, while interviews reveal beyond-automation needs.