Presentation software still holds barriers to independent creation for blind and visually impaired users (BVIs) due to its visual-centric interface. To address this gap, we introduce I-Scratch, a multimodal system which empowers BVIs to independently create, explore, and edit PowerPoint slides. We initially designed I-Scratch to tackle the practical challenges faced by BVIs and refined I-Scratch to improve its usability and accessibility through iterative participatory sessions involving a blind user. I-Scratch integrates a graphical tactile display with auditory guidance for multimodal feedback, simplifies the user interface, and leverages AI technologies for visual assistance in image generation and content interpretation. A user study with ten BVIs demonstrated that I-Scratch enables them to produce visually coherent and aesthetically pleasing slides independently, achieving 91.25% of full and partial successes with a CSI score of 85.07. We present five guidelines and future directions to support the creative work of BVIs using presentation software.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3713553
The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (https://chi2025.acm.org/)