Nuanced Perspectives Toward Disability Simulations from Digital Designers, Blind, Low Vision, and Color Blind People
Abstract
Designers of digital content have access to various resources that they use to help them meet disabled people’s accessibility needs. Disability simulations are one resource, but often criticized for failing to guide digital designers appropriately, and it is unclear if digital designers are aware of the issues surrounding disability simulations. I surveyed 92 digital designers to understand their perspectives toward disability simulations (both perceived advantages and disadvantages). I then shared work process challenges faced by digital designers and their reasons for using disability simulations with 17 people with vision impairments to facilitate a discussion on this topic. The interviewees discussed ideas that suggest many paths can be explored to connect digital designers and disabled people, in general, to reduce reliance on simulations, and a change is needed within workplace processes, culture, and staffing to further support positive change. There are research opportunities to investigate establishing avenues for connecting digital designers and disabled people in a way that is beneficial to both groups.
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Disability simulation removes disabled people's lived experience from design, through superficial 'try on' experiences incomparable to living with disability.
“it removes disabled people's lived experience from design, through superficial 'try on' experiences incomparable to living with disability [8, 49].”
From Where are the Disabled Students?: A Literature Review of Disability Inclusion in Computing Education Research (2026) · cites this paper as [49]
Disability simulation avoids access labor.
“Although simulation avoids access labor [49]”
From Where are the Disabled Students?: A Literature Review of Disability Inclusion in Computing Education Research (2026) · cites this paper as [49]
Due to recruitment challenges faced by Lin et al. during the COVID-19 pandemic, the system was tested with blindfolded participants, which limited its validity.
“However, due to recruitment challenges faced by Lin et al. during the COVID-19 pandemic, the system was tested with blindfolded participants, which limited its validity [12, 83, 92].”
From Experiences and Perceptions of Blind and Low-Vision (BLV) People with Retail Self-Checkout Systems (2026) · cites this paper as [92]
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The Promise and Pitfalls of Web Accessibility Overlays for Blind and Low Vision Users
Makati, T., Tigwell, G. W., & Shinohara, K. (2024) · The 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675650 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Self-citationInterdependent Variables: Remotely Designing Tactile Graphics for an Accessible Workflow
de Greef, L., Moritz, D., & Bennett, C. (2021) · Proceedings of the 23rd International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3441852.3476468 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Figueira, I., Cisneros, J. M., Weber, J. L., Sanka, W., Phan, K., Wong-Ma, J., & Branham, S. M. (2026) · Proceedings of the 57th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V.1 · doi:10.1145/3770762.3772561 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
Experiences and Perceptions of Blind and Low-Vision (BLV) People with Retail Self-Checkout Systems
Heisey, A., Shinohara, K., & Tigwell, G. W. (2026) · ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing · doi:10.1145/3816243
Self-citation
- Authors
- Tigwell, G. W.
- Affiliations
- Rochester Institute of Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Tigwell, Garreth W.
- ORCID
- Tigwell, Garreth W.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
- Publisher
- ACM
- Published
- 2021-05-06
- Pages
- 1-15
- OpenAlex
- W3161575571
- Cited by
- 73
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 5
- FWCI
- 16.42
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Human Factors and Ergonomics › Digital Accessibility for Disabilities
- Social Sciences › Safety Research › Disability Rights and Representation
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Usability and User Interface Design
- Keywords
- disability simulation, digital accessibility, web accessibility, blind users, low vision users, color vision deficiency, user experience design, designer perspective, visual impairment
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