Vibration Or Voice? Enhancing EQ Information Accessibility for Blind Music Producers with Haptics
Christina Karpodini, Tychonas Michailidis, Chris Creed, Tony Stockman, Ian Williams · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3746374
Summary
This paper investigates the use of vibrotactile feedback patterns (Tactons) as an alternative to screen readers for conveying equaliser (EQ) audio effect settings to blind and visually impaired (BVI) music producers working in Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs). The core problem is that screen readers deliver information through speech audio that conflicts with the music material producers are simultaneously listening to and editing, creating significant cognitive load and workflow disruption. The researchers designed six two-parameter Tactons to convey information about the ReaEQ equaliser plugin in the Reaper DAW. Each Tacton encodes two pieces of information simultaneously: the frequency band (low, middle, or high) is mapped to the physical location of vibration on a three-motor wearable armband using a logical metaphor (left to right corresponding to low to high frequency), while the UI element type (slider or text field) is encoded through rhythm (two short vibrations for slider, three short vibrations for text). The system was built using MAX 8 programming with an ESP32-based wearable device featuring three cylindrical ERM vibration motors. Six BVI music producers (4 blind, 2 low vision, ages 24-50) evaluated the system in a scenario with background music playing, comparing three conditions: screen reader alone (SR), haptics alone (H), and screen reader combined with haptics (SRH).
Key findings
All three methods achieved recognition accuracy above 94% with no statistically significant difference between them: screen reader 95.51% (SD=2%), screen reader with haptics 94.97% (SD=1.61%), and haptics alone 96.65% (SD=1.55%). Task completion time showed no significant difference either (SR: 5.02s, SRH: 4.4s, H: 3.47s), nor did overall NASA-TLX workload scores (SR: 42.17, SRH: 45.28, H: 38.78). UMUX usability scores translated to SUS equivalencies of 72.55 (Good) for SR, 74.17 (Good) for SRH, and 90.28 (Excellent) for haptics alone. Qualitatively, all six participants expressed strong positive acceptance of the haptic approach. They perceived haptics as faster than screen readers and highlighted the critical benefit of using a different sensory channel that does not interfere with listening to music. Participants described the screen reader as "cumbersome" when editing audio, noting that having both speech and music in the auditory channel creates overload. Several participants preferred haptics alone over the hybrid method, finding the combination of voice and vibration to be "overwhelming" rather than complementary. Participants suggested extending the approach to other DAW parameters including gain, compressor settings, peak meters, and button states.
Relevance
This study provides evidence that vibrotactile feedback can match screen reader performance for conveying structured digital interface information, opening a significant new pathway for accessible music production. For BVI music professionals, the audio channel conflict between screen readers and music material is not merely an inconvenience but a fundamental barrier to competitive professional practice — as one participant noted, they need to work as fast as sighted counterparts when producing for clients. The Tacton design approach using modifier tactile patterns (combining location and rhythm parameters) offers a transferable framework for encoding multi-dimensional interface information haptically in any domain where the audio channel is occupied or overloaded. The finding that multimodality was not always preferred — with participants finding the hybrid condition overwhelming rather than supportive — challenges assumptions that more modalities always improve accessibility, suggesting that the value of multimodal feedback depends on whether modalities complement or compete for cognitive resources.
Tags: blind and visually impaired · music production · haptic feedback · vibrotactile feedback · screen reader · digital audio workstation · tactons · accessible music technology