Soon screen reader users can ask Google Chrome to fetch image descriptions from Google, for “always” or “once” via an option in the image context menu. If selected, the image descriptions can always be read automatically by a screen reader or for that time only, this feature can be turned off later by going to Accessibility Settings.
Visually impaired people use a screen reader on their devices to hear content. Screen readers generally ignore images that don’t have a description or missing alt text and continue to read the text in a webpage. Now, Google wants to offer an option for unlabelled images in the context menu in Chrome browser (currently available in Chrome Canary) so that users can request Google to provide a useful description for the image.
Do note if you give consent, images will be sent to Google for scanning, the descriptions will be provided in return to the user. “If an image doesn’t have a useful description, Chrome will try to provide one for you. Images are scanned by Google.”
Get image descriptions for images from Google in Chrome
For instance, with a Screen reader installed on your computer if you visit Chrome Canary and right click an image, you’ll notice a “Get image descriptions from Google” option in Context menu.
If you select ‘always’ or ‘once’, Chrome asks your consent to enable the feature, if you allow, those images will be sent to Google and descriptions will be returned to the Chrome on the device which will be read by screen reader.
Anytime you can visit Chrome Settings and disable the permission.
To do that,
1. Click on Chrome menu > Settings
2. Head to Advanced > Accessibility
3. Turn off “Get image descriptions from Google”
Considering Chromebooks have screen reader Chromevox built-in, visually impaired users may find the feature more useful on Chrome OS and Chromevox can be turned on or off by pressing Ctrl +Alt +Z.
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