Tactile graphics communicate images and spatial information to blind and low vision (BLV) audiences via touch. However, designing and producing tactile graphics is laborious and often inaccessible to BLV people themselves. We interviewed 14 BLV adults with experience both using and creating tactile graphics to understand their current and desired practices. We found that tactile graphics are intensely valued by many, but that access to and fluency with tactile graphics are compounding challenges. To produce tactile graphics, BLV makers constantly navigate tradeoffs between accessible, low-fidelity craft materials and less accessible, high-fidelity equipment. Going forward, we argue that tactile graphics design and production should be made widely accessible and that tactile graphics themselves should be designed to be expressive and ubiquitous. Drawing from these design goals, we propose specific future tools with features for inclusive designing, sharing, and (re)production of tactile graphics.
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3706598.3714173
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