While researchers have examined alternative (alt) text for social media and news contexts, few have studied the status and challenges for authoring alt text of figures in computing-related publications. These figures are distinct, often conveying dense visual information, and may necessitate unique accessibility solutions. Accordingly, we explored how to support authors in creating alt text in computing publications—specifically in the field of human-computer interaction (HCI). We conducted two studies: (1) an analysis of 300 recently published figures at a general HCI conference (ACM CHI)…Apple Machine Learning Research