Enhancing Productivity Applications for People who are Blind with AI Assistance

This thesis investigates how blind users interact with everyday productivity tools such as spreadsheets and the challenges of accessing them with screen readers. It takes a holistic view of barriers across productivity tools and explores how recent advances in artificial intelligence, particularly generative AI, can benefit blind users. Although AI can help mitigate accessibility challenges and enable tasks that were previously difficult or impossible with screen readers, verifying its outputs, especially for visual based tasks, remains more complex and effortful, highlighting the need for accessible validation methods. Overall, the findings inform the design of more inclusive digital tools.