"Game Changer" or "Overenthusiastic Drunk Acquaintance"? Generative AI Use by Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals in the Workplace
"Game Changer" or "Overenthusiastic Drunk Acquaintance"? Generative AI Use by Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals in the Workplace
The software development workplace poses numerous technical and collaborative accessibility challenges for blind and low vision software professionals (BLVSPs). Though Generative AI (GenAI) is increasingly adopted within the software development industry and has been a rapidly growing topic of interest in research, to date, the unique perspectives of BLVSPs have yet to be consulted. We report on a qualitative study involving 39 semi-structured interviews with BLVSPs about what the introduction of GenAI has meant for their
work. We found that BLVSPs used GenAI for many software development tasks, resulting in benefits such as increased productivity and accessibility. However, significant costs were also accompanied by GenAI use as they were more vulnerable to hallucinations than their sighted colleagues. Sometimes, organizational policies prevented use. Based on our findings, we discuss the higher-risks and higher-returns that BLVSPs had to carefully weigh when deciding whether and when to use GenAI tools for work.
Association for Computing Machinery
Cha, Yoonha
51d42c5f-2020-4dc1-bf56-d9dde2ac9ee9
Jackson, Victoria
28beab06-6fae-46d3-ad73-1d29897680db
Shu, Lauren
57dfabc0-765c-4f86-99dd-d8c631ec9ed7
Branham, Stacy
79c305e0-6d9e-481a-979f-0a10e78f7bd1
Van Der Hoek, André
4c4cdeed-2314-47ad-ab7f-ae14026a028c
Cha, Yoonha
51d42c5f-2020-4dc1-bf56-d9dde2ac9ee9
Jackson, Victoria
28beab06-6fae-46d3-ad73-1d29897680db
Shu, Lauren
57dfabc0-765c-4f86-99dd-d8c631ec9ed7
Branham, Stacy
79c305e0-6d9e-481a-979f-0a10e78f7bd1
Van Der Hoek, André
4c4cdeed-2314-47ad-ab7f-ae14026a028c
Cha, Yoonha, Jackson, Victoria, Shu, Lauren, Branham, Stacy and Van Der Hoek, André
(2025)
"Game Changer" or "Overenthusiastic Drunk Acquaintance"? Generative AI Use by Blind and Low Vision Software Professionals in the Workplace.
In Proceedings of the 2026 IEEE/ACM 48th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE '26).
Association for Computing Machinery..
(In Press)
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Conference or Workshop Item
(Paper)
Abstract
The software development workplace poses numerous technical and collaborative accessibility challenges for blind and low vision software professionals (BLVSPs). Though Generative AI (GenAI) is increasingly adopted within the software development industry and has been a rapidly growing topic of interest in research, to date, the unique perspectives of BLVSPs have yet to be consulted. We report on a qualitative study involving 39 semi-structured interviews with BLVSPs about what the introduction of GenAI has meant for their
work. We found that BLVSPs used GenAI for many software development tasks, resulting in benefits such as increased productivity and accessibility. However, significant costs were also accompanied by GenAI use as they were more vulnerable to hallucinations than their sighted colleagues. Sometimes, organizational policies prevented use. Based on our findings, we discuss the higher-risks and higher-returns that BLVSPs had to carefully weigh when deciding whether and when to use GenAI tools for work.
Text
ICSE_2026_Submission___BLVSP_GenAI
- Accepted Manuscript
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Accepted/In Press date: 17 November 2025
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Local EPrints ID: 510999
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/510999
PURE UUID: f11f5efc-89a5-4873-9b51-3decf25afda3
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Date deposited: 28 Apr 2026 17:00
Last modified: 29 Apr 2026 02:17
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Contributors
Author:
Yoonha Cha
Author:
Victoria Jackson
Author:
Lauren Shu
Author:
Stacy Branham
Author:
André Van Der Hoek
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