Towards Construction-Oriented Play for Vision-Diverse People

Abstract

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Playful forms of construction, both analog and digital, enable players of all ages to build whatever they imagine. Engaging in construction-oriented play grants diverse people a wide range of benefits, such as enhanced collaborative problem solving, gains in spatial reasoning, and increases in demonstrated creativity. However, the inaccessibility of construction-oriented play, especially in the digital medium, precludes blind and low-vision players from these important benefits. In this work, we sought to understand how construction-oriented play affects blind players’ lives and the access challenges they face. Through semi-structured interviews with 17 participants aged 10 to 48, we found that construction-oriented play provides BLV individuals with socialization, cultural inclusion, and therapeutic benefits, fostering creativity and expression; however, vision-diverse players often rely on tactile references, sighted assistance, and/or customized game modifications to overcome accessibility challenges. We contribute a qualitative empirical understanding of how blind and low-vision people are interacting with digital and tangible construction media and discuss future directions for more accessible construction-oriented play.