Creative activities play an essential role in everyday life. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the accessibility community to support blind and low vision (BLV) people’s digital creative experiences. We conducted a mixed-method study to gain a comprehensive understanding of their creative needs to inform and focus this line of research. Through a large-scale survey (N = 165) and follow-up interviews (N = 15), we learned that BLV people are interested in a more diverse range of creative tasks than what is currently accessible. In particular, many forms of visual content creation and advanced expressions still remain challenging. Participants pointed out both accessibility improvements and social changes needed to fulfill personal creative pursuits. In turn, we discuss potential design ideas to move toward more inclusive creative practices, such as developing alternative, non-visual information-sharing methods and establishing visual information presentation guidelines specific to creative contexts.
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Abstract
Creative activities play an essential role in everyday life. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the accessibility community to support blind and low vision (BLV) people’s digital creative experiences. We conducted a mixed-method study to gain a comprehensive understanding of their creative needs to inform and focus this line of research. Through a large-scale survey (N = 165) and follow-up interviews (N = 15), we learned that BLV people are interested in a more diverse range of creative tasks than what is currently accessible. In particular, many forms of visual content creation and advanced expressions still remain challenging. Participants pointed out both accessibility improvements and social changes needed to fulfill personal creative pursuits. In turn, we discuss potential design ideas to move toward more inclusive creative practices, such as developing alternative, non-visual information-sharing methods and establishing visual information presentation guidelines specific to creative contexts.