Co-Designing Multimodal Systems for Accessible Asynchronous Dance Instruction

TL;DR

This paper explores co-designed multimodal systems to improve accessible asynchronous dance instruction for blind and low vision learners, addressing challenges in conveying complex movements and timing through audio, haptics, and narration.

Contribution

It presents insights from co-design workshops with BLV dancers and experts, revealing key themes and design strategies for scalable accessible dance instruction systems.

Findings

Participants emphasized staged learning and movement dissection.

Development of movement vocabularies for better understanding.

Selective modality use enhances accessibility and learning.

Abstract

Videos make exercise instruction widely available, but they rely on visual demonstrations that blind and low vision (BLV) learners cannot see. While audio descriptions (AD) can make videos accessible, describing movements remains challenging as the AD must convey what to do (mechanics, location, orientation) and how to do it (speed, fluidity, timing). Prior work thus used multimodal instruction to support BLV learners with individual simple movements. However, it is unclear how these approaches scale to dance instruction with unique, complex movements and precise timing constraints. To inform accessible asynchronous dance instruction systems, we conducted three co-design workshops (N=28) with BLV dancers, instructors, and experts in sound, haptics, and AD. Participants designed 8 systems revealing common themes: staged learning to dissect routines, crafting vocabularies for movements, and selectively using modalities (narration for movement structure, sound for expression, and haptics for spatial cues). We conclude with design implications to make learning dance accessible.