Idea11y: Enhancing Accessibility in Collaborative Ideation for Blind or Low Vision Screen Reader Users

Paper Title

Idea11y: Enhancing Accessibility in Collaborative Ideation for Blind or Low Vision Screen Reader Users

Publication Info

• Topic area: Accessibility in collaborative digital whiteboarding for blind or low vision (BLV) users.
• Keywords: Accessibility, blind or low vision, screen readers, digital whiteboards, collaborative ideation, hierarchical representation, auditory feedback, inclusive design, assistive technology, creativity support tools.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Digital whiteboards are widely used for collaborative ideation but remain largely inaccessible to BLV users due to their reliance on visual interaction paradigms, such as spatial arrangements, visual clustering, and real-time cursor feedback.
• Significance: Exclusion from digital whiteboarding limits BLV professionals' participation in creative and collaborative processes, reducing their opportunities in workplaces and educational settings.
• Motivation and related work: Prior research on accessibility in collaboration tools (e.g., document editors, slides) has not adequately addressed the unique challenges of digital whiteboards. Existing solutions fail to provide BLV users with access to spatial and relational information critical for ideation.

Solution

• Proposed approach: Idea11y, a whiteboard plugin that transforms freeform whiteboard content into a hierarchical, editable text outline, augmented with auditory feedback and screen reader-compatible navigation.
• Novelty:
  1. Algorithmic application of gestalt principles to identify and represent clustering structures in a hierarchical text format.
  2. Two-way synchronization between the text outline and the visual whiteboard to support BLV and sighted collaborators.
  3. Integration of auditory cues, voice coding, and accessible voting mechanisms to enhance collaboration awareness and idea evaluation.
  4. Real-time updates and navigation shortcuts to facilitate efficient interaction for BLV users.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  1. Analyze whiteboard content using gestalt principles (proximity, color similarity, enclosure) to identify clusters.
  2. Represent clusters, frames, and notes in a hierarchical text outline with screen reader-compatible navigation.
  3. Enable manipulation of board content (add, edit, move, delete notes) through intuitive keyboard shortcuts.
  4. Provide auditory feedback for collaboration awareness (e.g., collaborator locations, cursor co-presence).
  5. Implement accessible voting features to support idea prioritization.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • BLV participants rated Idea11y significantly higher than the baseline (Miro) for understanding grouping (Z = −2.55, p < 0.05), adding notes (Z = −2.52, p < 0.05), and moving notes (Z = −2.93, p < 0.01).
  • Idea11y enabled BLV participants to actively participate in all ideation phases: idea generation (average 5.2 notes added per session), synthesis, and evaluation.
  • Collaboration awareness features (e.g., jumping to collaborators, auditory alerts) facilitated effective coordination between BLV and sighted users.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Idea11y outperformed Miro in accessibility for note manipulation, understanding clustering, and collaboration awareness.
  • BLV participants found Idea11y’s hierarchical structure intuitive and efficient for navigating and editing content.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Study 1: Individual evaluation with 13 BLV screen reader users comparing Idea11y and Miro.
  • Study 2: Collaborative ideation sessions with 6 BLV-sighted dyads using Idea11y.
  • Metrics: Likert-scale ratings, Creativity Support Index (CSI), qualitative feedback.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Lack of spatial representation in Idea11y’s hierarchical format.
  • Limited evaluation with small sample sizes and dyads.
  • Future work: Extend to complex layouts (e.g., mind maps), incorporate multimodal feedback (e.g., spatial audio, tactile interfaces), and support larger, diverse teams.

Summary

Idea11y addresses the accessibility gap in digital whiteboarding by transforming visual content into a hierarchical, text-based format compatible with screen readers. Through auditory feedback, intuitive navigation, and accessible voting, Idea11y enables BLV users to actively participate in collaborative ideation alongside sighted collaborators. Evaluation with BLV users and BLV-sighted dyads demonstrated its effectiveness in supporting idea generation, synthesis, and evaluation. This work highlights the need to rethink visual-centric design paradigms and offers practical considerations for creating inclusive ideation tools.