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Discussion forums are one of the favored platforms for knowledge sharing. Given their popularity, copious research exists on understanding the linguistic and behavioral characteristics of forum conversations, so as to inform the design of many downstream applications including discourse visualization, sentiment analysis, and question answering. However, prior investigations have mainly focused on general forums designed primarily for sighted users, and as such the applicability of their findings to dedicatedaccessibilitydiscussion forums frequented by blind screen reader users remains unanswered. To bridge this knowledge gap and facilitate the development of better-informed assistive technologies for blind people, we investigated language use in accessibility forums and identified unique linguistic and cognitive characteristics of discussions in these forums. To aid our investigation, we collected a dataset of 1000 accessibility forum threads and a baseline of 1000 general forum threads, while ensuring that the threads in both groups discussed similar topics. In our analyses, we found the language in accessibility forum conversations to be more task-oriented and less abstract, with significantly higher number of descriptive action verbs than in general forum conversations. Moreover, the accessibility threads had significantly higher authenticity scores than general threads, which indicates that blind users are less reserved in online discussions, and are instead more spontaneous and expressive in their writing. We lastly discuss the implications of our findings, including how assistive technologies can be enhanced to improve blind users’ experience in online discussion forums. 

Significant changes in the digital employment landscape, driven by rapid technological advancements and the COVID-19 pandemic, have introduced new opportunities for blind and visually impaired (BVI) individuals in developing countries like India. However, a significant portion of the BVI population in India remains unemployed despite extensive accessibility advancements and job search interventions. Therefore, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 20 BVI persons who were either pursuing or recently sought employment in the digital industry. Our findings reveal that despite gaining digital literacy and extensive training, BVI individuals struggle to meet industry requirements for fulfilling job openings. While they engage in self-reflection to identify shortcomings in their approach and skills, they lack constructive feedback from peers and recruiters. Moreover, the numerous job intervention tools are limited in their ability to meet the unique needs of BVI job seekers. Our results, therefore, provide key insights that inform the design of future collaborative intervention systems that offer personalized feedback for BVI individuals, effectively guiding their self-reflection process and subsequent job search behaviors, and potentially leading to improved employment outcomes.