Accessibility-Driven Information Transformations in Mixed-Visual Ability Work Teams

TL;DR

This study explores how mixed-visual ability teams transform inaccessible information into accessible formats, revealing patterns and opportunities to improve collaborative systems for BLV and sighted workers.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of representational transformations in mixed-ability teams, highlighting coordination patterns and informing system design for accessibility.

Findings

Teams perform proactive and reactive transformations.

Four common coordination patterns identified.

Opportunities for system support in accessibility.

Abstract

Blind and low-vision (BLV) employees in mixed-visual ability teams often encounter information (e.g., PDFs, diagrams) in inaccessible formats. To enable teamwork, teams must transform these representations by modifying or re-creating them into accessible forms. However, these transformations are frequently overlooked, lack infrastructural support, and cause additional labour. To design systems that move beyond one-off accommodations to effective mixed-ability collaboration, we need a deeper understanding of the representations, their transformations and how they occur. We conducted a week-long diary study with follow-up interviews with 23 BLV and sighted professionals from five legal, non-profit, and consulting teams, documenting 36 transformation cases. Our analysis characterizes how teams perform representational transformations for accessibility: how they are triggered proactively or reactively, how they simplify or enhance, and four common patterns in which workers coordinate with each other to address representational incompatibility. Our findings uncover opportunities for designing systems that can better support mixed-visual ability work.