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Performing Qualitative Data Analysis as a Blind Researcher: Challenges, Workarounds and Design Recommendations

Published: 22 October 2022 Publication History

Abstract

Over the last 2 decades, the way in which disabled body minds are regarded in research has evolved considerably. From an understanding that disability research involves research or enquiry on or of disabled people, there is now a shift in thinking that regards disability research as research done by and with disabled people as well, thus challenging traditional researcher-participant relationships. This has lead to a larger number of people with disabilities aspiring to enter academia. However, several barriers to full inclusion of people with disabilities still remain. This paper talks about one such barrier, that is, the lack of accessibility in software packages used for qualitative data analysis. Through the author’s experiences in hunting for accessible ways to perform qualitative data analysis, the paper reviews existing software packages, discusses possible workarounds, and considers the feature requirements for an accessible qualitative data analysis tool.

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Cited By

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  • (2025)“Talking the Same Language”: The Influence of Sharing a Visual Impairment Identity Between Researchers and Participants on Enhancing Participant Recruitment and Fostering Rapport During Interviews With Blind IndividualsInternational Journal of Qualitative Methods10.1177/1609406925132085824Online publication date: 17-Feb-2025
  • (2024)“It’s weird for the people who aren’t used to it. And I want to make it less weird”: Blindness community bloggers as legitimate voices of their lived experiencesNew Media & Society10.1177/14614448241229424Online publication date: 23-Feb-2024
  • (2024)Leveraging Qualitative Analysis Software to Complement Traditional Qualitative Research Approaches for Curriculum Design: Results of a Needs Assessment StudyInternational Journal of Construction Education and Research10.1080/15578771.2024.240561220:4(544-561)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024

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  1. Performing Qualitative Data Analysis as a Blind Researcher: Challenges, Workarounds and Design Recommendations

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      cover image ACM Conferences
      ASSETS '22: Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility
      October 2022
      902 pages
      ISBN:9781450392587
      DOI:10.1145/3517428
      Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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      Published: 22 October 2022

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      Author Tags

      1. Accessibility
      2. Human Centered Design
      3. Qualitative Data Analysis

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      ASSETS '22 Paper Acceptance Rate 35 of 132 submissions, 27%;
      Overall Acceptance Rate 436 of 1,556 submissions, 28%

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      Cited By

      View all
      • (2025)“Talking the Same Language”: The Influence of Sharing a Visual Impairment Identity Between Researchers and Participants on Enhancing Participant Recruitment and Fostering Rapport During Interviews With Blind IndividualsInternational Journal of Qualitative Methods10.1177/1609406925132085824Online publication date: 17-Feb-2025
      • (2024)“It’s weird for the people who aren’t used to it. And I want to make it less weird”: Blindness community bloggers as legitimate voices of their lived experiencesNew Media & Society10.1177/14614448241229424Online publication date: 23-Feb-2024
      • (2024)Leveraging Qualitative Analysis Software to Complement Traditional Qualitative Research Approaches for Curriculum Design: Results of a Needs Assessment StudyInternational Journal of Construction Education and Research10.1080/15578771.2024.240561220:4(544-561)Online publication date: 25-Sep-2024

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