Party Face Congratulations! Exploring Design Ideas to Help Sighted Users with Emoji Accessibility when Messaging with Screen Reader Users

DOI

Emoji are a popular, expressive form of non-verbal communication. However, people often use emoji is ways that result in confusing or cumbersome screen reader output. We created two accessibility support designs: (1) Preview, which displays a basic text transcript of a message with emoji that a screen reader would narrate, and (2) Alert, which summarises potential accessibility issues caused by emoji within a message. We explored our designs using an online survey and provided participants with the option to edit messages that contained emoji, should they choose to do so. We collected 1508 modified messages from 116 sighted participants, and conducted a qualitative analysis on the data to identify the strategies participants used to write accessible messages as well as their appreciation of each design. We found that participants preferred the Preview design over Alert since it allows for subjective interpretations of what constitutes an accessible message. We share insights into sighted users strategies to write in more accessible ways (e.g., rewriting the message to move the emoji to the end) and incorrect assumptions about screen readers that lead to using textual markers that are incompatible with screen readers. We discuss the implications for future designs of messaging systems that include accessibility writing tips.