Christina Yeung, Tadayoshi Kohno, and Franziska Roesner.
ACM Internet Measurement Conference (IMC), November 2024

Paper: [PDF]

Abstract:
Ads are often designed visually, with images and videos conveying information. In this work, we study the accessibility of ads on the web to users of screen readers. We approach this in two ways: first, we conducted a measurement and analysis of 90 websites over a month, collecting ads and auditing their behavior against a subset of best practices established by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Then, to put our measurement findings in context, we interviewed 13 blind participants who navigate the web with a screen reader to understand their experiences with (in)accessible ads. We find that the overall web ad ecosystem is fairly inaccessible in multiple ways: many images are missing alt-text, unlabeled links make it confusing for folks to navigate, and closing ads can be tricky. But, there are straightforward ways to improve: because only a few large companies dominate the ad ecosystem, making small changes to the way they enforce accessibility standards can make a large difference.

Dataset:
You can download a zip file of the full dataset here: [ZIP File].
Or, you can browse the dataset in our Ad Archive here: [Link to Ad Archive].

Related Research:
The University of Washington Security and Privacy Research Lab has been studying risks from online advertising for over a decade. You can learn more about our other research on this topic here: https://ads.cs.washington.edu.