Like many parents, visually impaired parents (VIPs) read books with their children. However, research on accessible reading technologies predominantly focuses on blind adults reading alone or sighted adults reading with blind children, such that the motivations, strategies, and needs of blind parents reading with their sighted children are still largely undocumented. To address this gap, we interviewed 13 VIPs with young children. We found that VIPs (1) sought familial intimacy through reading with their child, often prioritizing intimacy over their own access needs, (2) took on many types of access labor to read with their children, and (3) desired novel assistive technologies (ATs) for reading that prioritize intimacy while reducing access labor. We contribute the notion of Intimate AT, along with a demonstrative design space, which together constitute a new design paradigm that draws attention to intimacy as a facet of both independently and collaboratively accessible ATs.

Scholars have investigated numerous barriers to accessible software development tools and processes for Blind and Low Vision (BLV) developers. However, the research community has yet to study the accessibility of software development meetings, which are known to play a crucial role in software development practice. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 26 BLV software professionals about software development meeting accessibility. We found four key themes related to in-person and remote software development meetings: (1) participants observed that certain meeting activities and software tools used in meetings were inaccessible, (2) participants performed additional labor in order to make meetings accessible, (3) participants avoided disclosing their disability during meetings due to fear of career repercussions, (4) participants suggested technical, social and organizational solutions for accessible meetings, including developing their own solutions. We suggest recommendations and design implications for future accessible software development meetings including technical and policy-driven solutions.

Image accessibility is an established research area in Accessible Computing and a key area of digital accessibility for blind and low vision (BLV) people worldwide. Recent work has delved deeper into the question of how image descriptions should properly reflect the complexities of marginalized identity. However, when real subjects are not available to consult on their preferred identity terminology, as is the case with fictional representations of disability, the issue arises again of how to create accurate and sensitive image descriptions. We worked with 25 participants to assess and iteratively co-design image descriptions for nine fictional representations of people with disabilities. Through nine focus groups and nineteen interviews, we discovered five key themes which we present here along with an analysis of the layers of interpretation at work in the production and consumption of image descriptions for fictional representations.

Accessibility researchers have been studying wayfinding technologies for people with disabilities for decades, typically focusing on solutions within disability populations - for example, technologies to support blind navigation. Yet, we know little about wayfinding needs across disabilities. In this paper, we describe a qualitative interview study examining the urban navigational experiences of 27 people who identified as older adults and/or who had cognitive, visual, hearing, and/or mobility disabilities. We found that many navigation route preferences were shared across disabilities (e.g., desire to avoid carpeted areas), while others diverged or were in tension (e.g., the need to avoid noisy areas while staying near main thoroughfares). To support design for multiple disability groups, we identify four dimensions of navigation preferences - technology, route, assistance, experience - and describe how these might usefully inform design of more universally usable wayfinding technologies.