A lack of accessible exhibitions for Blind and low-vision (BLV) visitors in art museums and historical sites is a barrier to equitable participation. The design and fabrication of accessible materials can be time-consuming and expensive for many institutions. We describe our work using digital embroidery machines to interpret historical textiles to provide accessible interpretations for BLV museum visitors and tactile learners. Our work focuses on designing solutions that that are informative, durable, and enjoyable to touch, while affordable to produce. Through a collaborative design process with tactile graphics experts in museums we create prototypes of historical textiles that meet these criteria. We describe our design process and offer fabrication guidelines for patterns and materials.

Blind individuals encounter access barriers while leading the design of media they consume, particularly with tactile graphics. Blind designers are underrepresented in the field of tactile graphic design, where sighted designers routinely control the process and output on their behalf. This lack of representation is caused by inaccessible digital technology that prevents the nonvisual design of tactile graphics by Blind designers. We address these challenges by forming a Blind-led team of four Blind designers, one sighted designer, and one sighted researcher, designing tactile graphics to better understand areas of process improvement. We discuss navigating workflow challenges and reflect on the opportunities of a Blind-led design process. Based on our experience, we contribute recommendations on nonvisual tools and inclusive workflows for practitioners and researchers who wish to engage in accessible design practices. Understanding the challenges and opportunities in Blind-led design spaces supports other disability communities of design practice.

Earcons are a critical auditory modality for those who perceive information best through sound. Yet earcons can trigger sensory sensitivities with neurodivergent individuals, causing pain or discomfort and creating barriers to information access. They must be carefully designed with neurodivergent representation in the design process to minimize the harm they impose. To address these challenges, we conduct a study on Twitter, a social media platform with frequent earcons, to understand how to design sensory-sensitive earcons for neurodivergent individuals. We present the results of our qualitative interviews with nine neurodivergent Twitter users, uncovering six key themes for designing sensory-sensitive earcons. Based on our findings, we offer a set of novel guidelines for practitioners to design sensory-sensitive earcons for accessibility.

Sensory guides and social narratives are learning tools that provide sensory and social support to neurodivergent individuals. These tools—and their design guidelines—have historically been developed for physical environments, such as museums and classrooms. They lack support for social media environments, where sensory stimuli and social contexts can be complex and uncertain. We address these challenges by designing a novel social media sensory guide and social narrative, specifically adapted for social media interaction. We leverage our use case, Twitter Spaces—an audio-only conversation feature in beta. The goal of this pilot study is to determine whether neurodivergent users want sensory guides and social narratives adapted for social media, and if users find them helpful in setting expectations for social media interaction. We evaluate these tools with eight neurodivergent Twitter users, using tasks and thinking aloud. Results indicate a strong potential for adoption of both tools among neurodivergent individuals to reduce overstimulation in social media environments.

Blind and low vision learners are underrepresented in STEM and maker culture, both of which are historically inaccessible. In this paper we describe our experience conducting a three-day nonvisual soldering workshop and discuss the opportunities and challenges for designing accessible electronics curricula. Workshop attendees learned nonvisual soldering skills, adapted from publications for blind and low vision electronics professionals [4, 13, 18], while building a complex circuit. We detail our curriculum design and its complexities for learners with different levels of technical experience and learning modalities. While our instruction pacing proved challenging for some, all attendees succeeded with operating hot soldering irons and commanding basic soldering techniques over the course of three days. Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for educators wanting to design similar nonvisual STEM curricula and workshops. These include supplying tactile and textual instruction to support multiple learning styles and pacing, and standardizing workshop materials to support nonvisual hands-on learning for novices.

Schematics are a visual language used to describe the relationships between components in an electronic circuit and present accessibility challenges for blind, low vision, and tactile learners. Creating discernible tactile schematics using low-cost microcapsule fusers (which create raised surfaces on paper) is non-trivial as circuit diagrams contain small elements, complex relationships, and must follow industry standards. We conducted iterative design activities with tactile graphic experts, blind and low vision students wanting to learn schematics, graphic designers, and physical computing instructors to create an improved set of tactile schematic symbols and nine guidelines for novices to create readable tactile graphics for schematics.