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Collaborative writing tools have been used widely in professional and academic organizations for many years. Yet, there has not been much work to improve screen reader access in mainstream collaborative writing tools. This severely affects the way people with vision impairments collaborate in ability-diverse teams. As a step toward addressing this issue, the present article aims at improving screen reader representation of collaborative features such as comments and track changes (i.e., suggested edits). Building on our formative interviews with 20 academics and professionals with vision impairments, we developed auditory representations that indicate comments and edits using non-speech audio (e.g., earcons, tone overlay), multiple text-to-speech voices, and contextual presentation techniques. We then performed a systematic evaluation study with 48 screen reader users that indicated that non-speech audio, changing voices, and contextual presentation can potentially improve writers’ collaboration awareness. We discuss implications of these results for the design of accessible collaborative systems.
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This content will become publicly available on September 30, 2026
Understanding the Experiences of People With and Without Vision Impairments When Using Mobile User Interface Alternative Color Modes MHCI034
A current trend in mobile user interface design is to provide alternative color modes (ACMs), such as light mode, dark mode, and high contrast mode, to improve people’s interaction experiences according to their vision access needs and/or the environment. For example, high contrast mode can improve UI visibility for people with low vision and for people using their smartphones in bright sunlight. However, little is known about the experiences of people using ACMs. To address this, we interviewed 29 people with and without vision impairments to discuss the benefits and challenges of ACMs. We found that while ACMs are beneficial, the current implementation results in accessibility and usability issues, particularly for people with vision impairments (e.g., negative health consequences and affected work performance). Using our findings, we outline steps the HCI community should consider to address current limitations and improve future ACMs.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2333220
- PAR ID:
- 10640770
- Publisher / Repository:
- ACM Digital Library
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
- Volume:
- 9
- Issue:
- 5
- ISSN:
- 2573-0142
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 25
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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