Designing with and for people living with visual impairments: audio-tactile mock-ups, audio diaries and participatory prototyping

Abstract

Methods used to engage users in the design process often rely on visual techniques, such as paper prototypes, to facilitate the expression and communication of design ideas. The visual nature of these tools makes them inaccessible to people living with visual impairments. Additionally, while using visual means to express ideas for designing graphical interfaces is appropriate, it is harder to use them to articulate the design of non-visual displays. In this paper, we present an approach to conducting participatory design with people living with visual impairments incorporating various techniques to help make the design process accessible. We reflect on the benefits and challenges that we encountered when employing these techniques in the context of designing cross-modal interactive tools.

Audio-haptic interfaces for digital audio workstations

“…We developed and applied a user-centred approach that incorporates various techniques to help make a participatory design process more accessible to people living with visual impairments. This paper extends our previous work on the use of this participatory design approach [2,3] by outlining further details of the design process, describing the audio-haptic solutions that resulted from it and their evaluations with users, and reflecting on the design process and its outcomes.…”

“…Key techniques of contemporary participatory design-such as video brainstorming-are discussed by Mackay et al in a video tutorial with accompanying text [6], Holmquist discusses a form of structured brainstorming he describes as "Bootlegging" [7] and the more physical technique of "Bodystorming" is discussed in [8]. However, many of these techniques break down when the participants are visually impaired due to their reliance on the visual and spatial relations or interactions, and new techniques or variations need to be explored, as we discuss in [3].…”

Weaving Lighthouses and Stitching Stories

“…Whilst technologies that address pragmatic concerns have been explored for a while, there is now also a growing move towards more creative uses of technologies for this user group. For example, haptic devices to guide VI audience members through immersive theatre experiences [29,30] or a haptic device aimed at VI audio and music producers [18,26] were developed in multidisciplinary teams. In each case, the blind and VI users were actively involved in the haptic designs for these creative uses, as experts on the experience for VI users and as co-designers during the process.…”

Vers un design accessible, au-delà du design de la forme et de la fonction

“…S'ils peuvent servir de guide dans le processus de conception, ils dénotent de vrais manques quant à la façon d'agencer les parties prenantes dans l'espace et dans le temps, de provoquer leur créativité, de les faire coopérer ou de les faire adhérer aux propositions de solution. Les travaux de recherche sur le design de relation participatif sont également peu nombreux dans le champ de l'accessibilité (Brock et al, 2010 ;Laitano, 2017 ;Metatla et al, 2015).…”