AI Assisted UI Design for Blind and Low Vision Creators

Visual aesthetics are critical to user interface (UI) design and usability. Prior work has shown that website aesthetics—which users evaluate in a ‘split second’upon page load—are a definitive factor not just in engaging users online but also in impacting opinions about usability, trustworthiness, and overall user satisfaction. Currently, however, there is limited support for blind or low-vision (BLV) creators in designing, implementing, and/or assessing the visual aesthetics of their UI creations. In this workshop paper, we consider AI-assisted user interface design as a potential solution. We provide background on related research in AI-assisted design and accessible programming, describe two preliminary studies examining BLV users’ current understanding of UIs and their ability to represent them with lo-fi methods, and close by discussing key open areas such as supporting BLV creators throughout the UI design process.