The Blind Leading the Blind: Designing a Co-Creation Workshop for Visually Impaired and Sighted Participants by a Visually Impaired Researcher
Peter A. Hayton, Alexander Wilson, Ben Morris, Jayne Dent, Clara Crivellaro · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3749834
Summary
This short paper presents a first-person reflective account from a severely sight impaired researcher (the first author, registered with the UK NHS as severely sight impaired, with approximately 3 metres of usable vision) on the experience of planning and delivering co-creation workshops with mixed groups of visually impaired and sighted participants. The workshops were part of a larger study exploring mobility challenges and opportunities for visually impaired people with new and emergent technologies in the UK. Two 2-hour workshops were conducted: the first with 2 VI and 3 sighted participants, the second with 11 VI, 6 sighted participants, and 3 support workers. Participants engaged with future scenarios about accessibility embedded in urban spaces in 2050, using custom-designed physical materials. The paper describes three key areas of innovation and challenge: designing accessible physical workshop materials (interactive 3D printed tactile boards with textures, sound cubes, and NFC-enabled scenario cards combining braille, large print, and audio), using synthesized speech audio (via ElevenLabs TTS) to deliver workshop scenarios and instructions rather than reading from printed materials, and navigating the significant challenges of data capture as a VI researcher.
Key findings
The paper reveals several practical insights. First, multi-sensory physical materials that combine texture, sound, and tactile elements effectively engaged both VI and sighted participants — the 3D printed boards with embossed textures and sound cubes that played different sounds when placed in slots worked well as discussion prompts. However, participants did not engage with craft materials like play-dough, echoing prior research. Second, the NFC-enabled scenario cards — 3D printed with braille on the back, adhesive vinyl large print on the front, and NFC tags that played audio when tapped to a reader — proved effective for both participant groups and freed the VI researcher from needing to read printed materials while facilitating. Third, using AI-generated TTS audio (ElevenLabs) to narrate workshop scenarios improved the researcher's confidence and reduced reliance on sighted assistance, though pronunciation issues (US accent for UK content, words like "route" pronounced as "rowt") required workarounds. Fourth, data capture was the most challenging aspect — the VI researcher could not independently operate cameras, GoPros, or verify recordings were running, and had to rely on sighted facilitators for visual data capture. Audio recorders (Zoom H2) were also inaccessible because the researcher could not see their displays. Taking notes during facilitation was impractical, so facilitators typed their handwritten notes afterward for accessible review.
Relevance
This paper makes an important contribution by centering the experience of a disabled researcher leading accessibility research, rather than being solely a participant or subject. It answers calls from scholars like Mack et al. for more disabled researchers in HCI, while honestly documenting the barriers that persist. The practical innovations — NFC-tagged multimodal prompt cards, TTS-narrated scenarios, tactile interactive boards — offer replicable techniques for anyone running inclusive workshops. The data capture challenges highlight a systemic problem: research tools and methods in HCI remain largely inaccessible to disabled researchers. Cameras, recording equipment, analysis software (like NVivo), and prototyping tools (like Figma and Miro) all present barriers. The paper argues that if HCI is to become truly inclusive, not just of disabled participants but of disabled researchers, the field must develop accessible data capture methods and research tools. This aligns with disability justice principles that disabled people should lead research about disability, not merely participate in it.
Tags: co-creation · visually impaired researcher · participatory design · tactile materials · 3D printing · disability justice · workshop design · inclusive research methods · lived experience