Figure 1: Overview of the research study.Left: A multi-sensory artefact combining contrasting spatialised audio and haptic feedback supports BLV dancers to align with a teacher's movement.Right: Three reflexive themes illustrate how the artefact shaped learning, teaching, and multi-sensory adaptation.

Dance teachers rely primarily on verbal instructions and visual demonstrations to convey key dance concepts and movement. These techniques, however, have limitations in supporting students who are blind or have low vision (BLV). This work explores the role technology can play in supporting instruction for BLV students, as well as improvisation with their instructor. Through a series of design workshops with dance instructors and BLV students, ideas were generated by physically engaging with probes featuring diverse modalities including tactile objects, a body tracked sound and musical probe, and a body tracked controller with vibrational feedback. Implications for the design of supporting technologies were discovered for four contemporary dance learning goals: learning a phrase; improvising; collaborating through movement; and awareness of body and movement qualities. We discuss the potential of numerous multi-sensory methods and artefacts, and present design considerations for technologies to support meaningful dance instruction and participation.

Actively participating in body movement such as dance, sports, and fitness activities is challenging for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV). Teachers primarily rely on verbal instructions and physical demonstrations with limited accessibility. Recent work shows that technology can support body movement education for BLV people. However, there is limited involvement with the BLV community and their teachers to understand their needs. By conducting a series of two surveys, 23 interviews and four focus groups, we gather the voices and perspectives of BLV people and their teachers. This provides a rich understanding of the challenges of body movement education. We identify ten major themes, four key design challenges, and propose potential solutions. We encourage the assistive technologies community to co-design potential solutions to these identified design challenges promoting the quality of life of BLV people and supporting the teachers in the provision of inclusive education.

People who are blind rely on touch and hearing to understand the world around them, however it is extremely difficult to understand movement through these modes. The advent of refreshable tactile displays (RTDs) offers the potential for blind people to access tactile animations for the very first time. A survey of touch readers and vision accessibility experts revealed a high level of enthusiasm for tactile animations, particularly those relating to education, mapping and concept development. Based on these suggestions, a range of tactile animations were developed and four were presented to 12 touch readers. The RTD held advantages over traditional tactile graphics for conveying movement, depth and height, however there were trade-offs in terms of resolution and textural properties. This work offers a first glimpse into how refreshable tactile displays can best be utilised to convey animated graphics for people who are blind.