The Impact of Generative AI Coding Assistants on Developers Who Are Visually Impaired
This addresses the accessibility challenges of AI tools for visually impaired developers, highlighting a critical but incremental gap in existing research.
The study investigated how developers with visual impairments interact with generative AI coding assistants, finding that while participants reported significant benefits, the assistants also exacerbated accessibility barriers, such as overwhelming suggestions and context-switching difficulties.
The rapid adoption of generative AI in software development has impacted the industry, yet its effects on developers with visual impairments remain largely unexplored. To address this gap, we used an Activity Theory framework to examine how developers with visual impairments interact with AI coding assistants. For this purpose, we conducted a study where developers who are visually impaired completed a series of programming tasks using a generative AI coding assistant. We uncovered that, while participants found the AI assistant beneficial and reported significant advantages, they also highlighted accessibility challenges. Specifically, the AI coding assistant often exacerbated existing accessibility barriers and introduced new challenges. For example, it overwhelmed users with an excessive number of suggestions, leading developers who are visually impaired to express a desire for ``AI timeouts.'' Additionally, the generative AI coding assistant made it more difficult for developers to switch contexts between the AI-generated content and their own code. Despite these challenges, participants were optimistic about the potential of AI coding assistants to transform the coding experience for developers with visual impairments. Our findings emphasize the need to apply activity-centered design principles to generative AI assistants, ensuring they better align with user behaviors and address specific accessibility needs. This approach can enable the assistants to provide more intuitive, inclusive, and effective experiences, while also contributing to the broader goal of enhancing accessibility in software development.