# A framework for improving the accessibility of research papers on arXiv.org

**Authors:** Shamsi Brinn, Christopher Cameron, David Fielding, Charles Frankston, Alison Fromme, Peter Huang, Mark Nazzaro, Stephanie Orphan, Steinn Sigurdsson, Ryan Tay, Miranda Yang, Qianyu Zhou  
**arXiv:** [2212.07286](https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.07286)  
**Date:** 2022-12-14  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/2212.07286v1/

## Key points

- The research content hosted by arXiv is not fully accessible to everyone due to disabilities and other barriers.
- A considerable proportion of people have reading and visual disabilities, which makes it crucial for the scientific community that arXiv is as open as possible in order to advance science through wide and diverse participation.
- Accessible content benefits everyone, and there are mandates to become accessible.
- Most steps in accessing research were dominated by negative experiences, with only finding research being mostly positive.
- Researchers who rely on assistive technology point out PDF as the biggest stumbling block to accessible research.
- Participants who do not rely on assistive technology find it challenging to visualize accessing research in new ways that might break their current PDF-dependent workflow.
- ArXiv has a role to play in improving the accessibility of research papers since it can have a powerful and immediate impact on making research more accessible.
- HTML is just one step towards a greater vision of accessibility since current accessibility standards are only a starting point for making things work for people with disabilities, which requires more than just meeting legal requirements.
- Many interviewees pointed out that a paper is just a portal to the knowledge behind it; they don't necessarily need access to the paper if they can absorb the research itself.
- ArXiv's proposed next step towards more open science includes offering HTML alongside existing PDF and TeX formats since HTML offers many benefits over PDF as an accessible format for scientific documents.

## Summary

The research content hosted by arXiv is not fully accessible to everyone due to disabilities and other barriers. This issue is significant because a considerable proportion of people have reading and visual disabilities, and it is crucial for the scientific community that arXiv is as open as possible in order to advance science through wide and diverse participation. Moreover, there are mandates to become accessible, and accessible content benefits everyone. The user journey table shows that most steps in accessing research were dominated by negative experiences, with only finding research being mostly positive. The highest number of comments was elicited by reading research followed by preparing documents. Researchers who rely on assistive technology point out PDF as the biggest stumbling block to accessible research. Participants who do not rely on assistive technology find it challenging to visualize accessing research in new ways that might break their current PDF-dependent workflow. ArXiv has a role to play in improving the accessibility of research papers since it can have a powerful and immediate impact on making research more accessible. HTML is just one step towards a greater vision of accessibility since current accessibility standards are only a starting point for making things work for people with disabilities, which requires more than just meeting legal requirements. Many interviewees pointed out that a paper is just a portal to the knowledge behind it; they don't necessarily need access to the paper if they can absorb the research itself. Therefore, arXiv's proposed next step towards more open science includes offering HTML alongside existing PDF and TeX formats since HTML offers many benefits over PDF as an accessible format for scientific documents.