TY - GEN
T1 - SoundCells
T2 - 19th International Web for All Conference, W4A 2022
AU - Payne, William
AU - Ahmed, Fabiha
AU - Gardell, Michael
AU - Dubois, R. Luke
AU - Hurst, Amy
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 ACM.
PY - 2022/4/25
Y1 - 2022/4/25
N2 - Technologies for notating music pose usage barriers to blind and visually impaired musicians requiring many to overcome a significant learning curve and/or rely on complicated tool chains with limited screen reader support. To address a need for accessible music notation software, we present SoundCells, a browser-based system designed to make music notation easy, intuitive, and accessible to screen reader users, and output music in audio, print, and braille formats. We share findings from a co-design process, in which two experienced musicians used SoundCells for two months guided by four remote meetings, and from a Design Probe, in which five other musicians tried SoundCells with a screen reader and reflected on its usability and accessibility in the context of their current practices. Finally, we discuss design recommendations relevant to a broader ecosystem of creative technologies, including how text-editing and multi-modal output capabilities could be extended and improved, how SoundCells' current design facilitated remote collaboration between sighted researchers and blind musicians, and future opportunities for learning and sharing music on the web.
AB - Technologies for notating music pose usage barriers to blind and visually impaired musicians requiring many to overcome a significant learning curve and/or rely on complicated tool chains with limited screen reader support. To address a need for accessible music notation software, we present SoundCells, a browser-based system designed to make music notation easy, intuitive, and accessible to screen reader users, and output music in audio, print, and braille formats. We share findings from a co-design process, in which two experienced musicians used SoundCells for two months guided by four remote meetings, and from a Design Probe, in which five other musicians tried SoundCells with a screen reader and reflected on its usability and accessibility in the context of their current practices. Finally, we discuss design recommendations relevant to a broader ecosystem of creative technologies, including how text-editing and multi-modal output capabilities could be extended and improved, how SoundCells' current design facilitated remote collaboration between sighted researchers and blind musicians, and future opportunities for learning and sharing music on the web.
KW - accessibility
KW - braille
KW - co-design
KW - music notation
KW - music technology
KW - visual impairments
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85130275566&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85130275566&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/3493612.3520462
DO - 10.1145/3493612.3520462
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85130275566
T3 - Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference, W4A 2022
BT - Proceedings of the 19th International Web for All Conference, W4A 2022
PB - Association for Computing Machinery, Inc
Y2 - 25 April 2022 through 26 April 2022
ER -