Conference Paper
Planning for Inclusive Design Workshops: Fostering Collaboration between People with and without Visual Impairment
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Text/Conference Paper
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Date
2021
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Publisher
European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET)
Abstract
Carrying out successful design workshops can be a challenging task. This can turn even more difficult, if one attempts to engage in more inclusive design workshops, where a broad range of user profiles are covered. If some of these profiles refer to people with impairments, things can get even more complicated. Furthermore, there are also associated challenges when trying to carry out something that is usually implemented as a face-to-face activity in an online format. This exploratory paper introduces a discussion on a few lessons learned from organising design workshops including both people with and without visual impairments. It also outlines our response to the situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented us to engage in face-to-face design workshops. Based on feedback received from participants of a first in-person design workshop organised within one of our projects and on informal interviews carried out mainly over the phone to discuss ways to enhance the collaboration between people with and without visual impairments during such activities, we go on to introduce some relevant aspects that should be taken into consideration when planning inclusive design workshops. This is a preliminary contribution, meant to raise discussions on technology-mediated inclusive participatory design initiatives to further inform the development of a solid methodological contribution to CSCW.