Educational Experiences of Blind Programmers

As diversity efforts in computer science begin to recognize disabled programmers as an underrepresented group, we step back to chronicle the experiences of blind programmers in higher education. Through a survey and follow-up interviews with 10 blind programmers, we share reflections and barriers important for the computing education community to understand as we attempt to welcoming cultures for disabled programmers. Our findings illuminated a variety of barriers blind programmers faced in college and the impact that they had on their ability to succeed in the field. We found that barriers permeate all parts of these blind student's' education from accessing the materials and doing the homework to working with professors. These barriers increased feelings of the isolation, decreased motivation especially when tasks were inaccessible, and prevented them from learning all the concepts covered in their degree program.