Co-Designing Multimodal Systems for Accessible Remote Dance Instruction

Abstract: Videos make exercise instruction widely available, but they rely on visual demonstrations that blind and low vision (BLV) learners cannot see. While audio descriptions (AD) can make videos accessible, describing movements remains challenging as the AD must convey \textit{what} to do (mechanics, location, orientation) and \textit{how} to do it (speed, fluidity, timing). Prior work thus used \textit{multimodal instruction} to support BLV learners with individual simple movements. However, it is unclear how these approaches scale to dance instruction with unique, complex movements and precise timing constraints. To inform accessible remote dance instruction systems, we conducted three co-design workshops (N=28) with BLV dancers, instructors, and experts in sound, haptics, and AD. Participants designed 8 systems revealing common themes: staged learning to dissect routines, crafting vocabularies for movements, and selectively using modalities (narration for movement structure, sound for expression, and haptics for spatial cues). We conclude with design recommendations to make learning dance accessible.