Finding the Signal in the Noise: An Exploratory Study on Assessing the Effectiveness of AI and Accessibility Forums for Blind Users' Support Needs

2026-02-20

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenges blind users face when seeking technical support through accessible online forums and generative AI systems, where information overload, content redundancy, and unreliable responses often exacerbate cognitive load and diminish support efficacy. Through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 14 frequent users, the research systematically compares the practical utility of these two resources in technical assistance scenarios. Qualitative content analysis and thematic coding reveal that forums suffer from topic conflation and fragmented replies, while generative AI frequently produces verbose, hallucinated, or internally inconsistent information. Building on these findings, the work proposes targeted design recommendations to enhance information credibility and cognitive manageability, offering novel insights for accessible human–computer interaction.

Technology Category

• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Data Mining & Knowledge Management: Conversational Systems for Recommendation & Retrieval
• Application Domains: Humanities & Computational Social Science

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Trust and reliance of crowd workers and data experts on GenAI
• Search and Retrieval-Augmented AI: Web evaluation methodologies and metrics
• Social Networks and Social Media: Generative AI / large language models and their impact on social systems

Abstract

Accessibility forums and, more recently, generative AI tools have become vital resources for blind users seeking solutions to computer-interaction issues and learning about new assistive technologies, screen reader features, tutorials, and software updates. Understanding user experiences with these resources is essential for identifying and addressing persistent support gaps. Towards this, we interviewed 14 blind users who regularly engage with forums and GenAI tools. Findings revealed that forums often overwhelm users with multiple overlapping topics, redundant or irrelevant content, and fragmented responses that must be mentally pieced together, increasing cognitive load. GenAI tools, while offering more direct assistance, introduce new barriers by producing unreliable answers, including overly verbose or fragmented guidance, fabricated information, and contradictory suggestions that fail to follow prompts, thereby heightening verification demands. Based on these insights, we outlined design opportunities to improve the reliability of assistive resources, aiming to provide blind users with more trustworthy and cognitively-manageable support.

Problem

• accessibility forums
• generative AI
• blind users
• support needs
• information reliability

Innovation

• generative AI
• accessibility forums
• blind users
• cognitive load
• information reliability