Examining the Current State of Group Support Accessibility: A Focus Group Study

Group support applications are widely used in workplace. Unfortunately, persons who are blind often found it difficult to access group support applications, due to the highly graphical nature of the application; this hinders their ability to contribute to the group. As a result, persons who are blind often face problems in gaining and retaining employment. This paper presents preliminary results of a focus group study conducted at the National Federation of Blind (NFB) on accessibility and usability issues of group support applications. How persons who are blind utilize group support applications to support their group tasks, the tasks/steps utilized to complete a group project, the accessibility and usability issues experienced, the reasons for discontinued use of group support applications, the other tools utilized to support group work, the accessibility design considerations, and the accessibility documentation and support needed are discussed.