Understanding Challenges and Opportunities in Body Movement Education of People who are Blind or have Low Vision

TL;DR

This paper addresses the limited accessibility of body movement education for BLV individuals by conducting surveys, interviews, and focus groups with BLV learners and their teachers. It reveals ten actionable themes and four design challenges aimed at improving representation, kinesthetic feedback, spatial-social learning, and remote accessibility. The work emphasizes co-design with BLV communities to develop multimodal tools, tactile representations, and accessible online content that enhance learning experiences and teacher support. The findings have practical implications for the assistive technologies and HCI communities to create inclusive, responsive educational technologies for BLV body movement participation.

Abstract

Actively participating in body movement such as dance, sports, and fitness activities is challenging for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV). Teachers primarily rely on verbal instructions and physical demonstrations with limited accessibility. Recent work shows that technology can support body movement education for BLV people. However, there is limited involvement with the BLV community and their teachers to understand their needs. By conducting a series of two surveys, 23 interviews and four focus groups, we gather the voices and perspectives of BLV people and their teachers. This provides a rich understanding of the challenges of body movement education. We identify ten major themes, four key design challenges, and propose potential solutions. We encourage the assistive technologies community to co-design potential solutions to these identified design challenges promoting the quality of life of BLV people and supporting the teachers in the provision of inclusive education.

Figures (4)

• Figure 1: Examples of traditional approaches to conveying movement with movable parts: (a) Fleximan figure with movable parts (Picture credit: Boguslaw Marek, Hungry Fingers) (b) Manipulative Andy Dreams figures with a tactile illustration of the same pose behind it. (Picture credit: childsPly Vision by Claire Garrett).
• Figure 2: A refreshable graphics display, Graphiti displaying a Tai Chi human pose.
• Figure 3: The methodology and the key findings of the process. Participant categories of BLV students are denoted by ‘S’ and teachers by ‘T’ in yellow boxes. Input for the next stage in yellow arrows. All three stages contribute to identifying challenges in learning and teaching body movement. Analysis from interviews and focus groups contributes to identifying ten key themes. Finally, all findings contribute to deriving four key design challenges.
• Figure 4: Mapping of themes from results to key design challenges and technology implications.