Idea11y: Enhancing Accessibility in Collaborative Ideation for Blind or Low Vision Screen Reader Users

Collaborative ideation tools like digital whiteboards are widely used by designers, academics, and creative practitioners; yet most ideation tools are inaccessible to blind or low vision (BLV) users. Informed by prior work on whiteboarding challenges encountered by BLV users and our formative study with eight sighted whiteboard users, we built Idea11y, a whiteboard plug-in that provides a hierarchical, editable text outline of board content, augmented with audio cues and voice coding. Findings from evaluation with thirteen BLV screen reader users revealed how Idea11y supported BLV users’ understanding of clustering structure and streamlined their process to author, synthesize, and prioritize ideas on the board. Collaborative ideation sessions with six BLV-sighted dyads demonstrated how BLV users used Idea11y to develop collaboration awareness and coordinate actions with sighted collaborators. Drawing on this, we discuss ways to move beyond implicit visual norms in established ideation frameworks and practical considerations for future accessible ideation systems.