Chrome Introduces AI Image Description To Help Visually Impaired

Google has recently tweaked Chrome focusing on the needs of visually impaired people and introduces AI Image Description in order to help and improve the browsing and viewing experience of such people.

The new feature in the Chrome browser uses machine learning to identify and describe images, the image description function uses the drive, Google Lens to automatically generate a description. Google’s senior accessibility Project Manager Laura Allen also has vision problems and she said while viewing the website using a screen reader the feature will eliminate a lot of trouble that may come across visually impaired persons.

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However, the current problem is that there are tons of images on the web that are not properly labeled yet when the users use a screen reader or braille display for the assistance they are only able to hear ‘pictures’ or ‘unmarked pictures’ or it is completely different a string of numbers e.g. file name.

But the new Chrome feature will directly describe the specific content of the image, for instance, it will tell the users that the image seems to be a “scooter” the suggestion is automatically generated by AI hence, it is may not be 100% accurate, so it will describe the image preceded with the words it contain.

The image feature is only available for the users using a screen reader or braille display. Users can simply go to Chrome Settings > Advanced > Accessibility and Select the option “Get Image Descriptions From Google” to enable the function. Users can also enable the settings for a single web page by right-clicking and selecting the same options from the menu.

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