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In short, we decided to explore a rather spicy conjecture: what if *sighted* people face barriers when trying to author non-visual experiences? What if non-visual accessibility work itself could be made more accessible?

It might seem obvious once you understand the problem, but when sighted people design non-visual user experiences (text, tactiles, sonification, navigation), they often first use visual symbols, metaphors, and language. Their "first language" is visual, so to speak. But what happens after design?

20/7/26, 11:52 pm1 repost6 likes

When it comes to navigation experiences specifically, suddenly the traversal paths, navigation nodes, relationships, rules, and logic of navigation become invisible. Design starts visual, but development and testing remain non-visual.

Because of this translation work (being unable to see non-visual design elements), sighted authors de-prioritize non-visual design and often fail to treat it seriously.

We set out not only to make navigation experiences visual during development and testing, but also to explore how creators shift their thinking when these visual elements can be directly manipulated, changed, altered, and acted upon.