Examining the current state of group support accessibility: An expanded study

Abstract

Group support applications are widely used in workplace to support group work. 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. In order to expand on the knowledge gained from previous research, three additional focus group studies were conducted. The focus group studies show that accessibility and usability issues of group support applications are impeding persons who are blind from productive group work. The implications of the results from this research project are also discussed. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.