Chancey Fleet

Accessibility Advocate, Educator, Technologist

Chancey Fleet standing in front of shelves lined with books.

About

Chancey Fleet is the Assistive Technology Coordinator for the Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library of the NYPL. She is a Blind accessibility advocate, a designer, a leader in the National Federation of the Blind, and lives in Brooklyn.

Books

Digital Accessibility Ethics book cover

Digital Accessibility Ethics: Disability Inclusion in All Things Tech

Edited by Lainey Feingold, Reginé Gilbert, and Chancey Fleet · Published 2026 · Chapman & Hall

Digital Accessibility Ethics: Disability Inclusion in All Things Tech is a practical guide with an urgent goal: to help end tech exclusion of 1.3 billion people across the world with disabilities.

  • How to be Disabled in a Pandemic

    Mara Mills, Harris Kornstein, Faye Ginsburg, and Rayna Rapp · 2025 · NYU Press

    A chronicle of ableism and disability activism in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic

Talks and Podcasts

Selected public talks, keynotes, and panels.

  • Getting a Feel for Art with BlindSVG

    AT Banter Podcast · 2025

    Ready to get your hands on some art? In this episode of AT Banter, we’re joined by tactile graphics gurus Chancey Fleet and Marco Salsiccia, who are on a mission to prove that "drawing in the dark" is not only possible but downright fun! Discover how blind and low vision creators are hacking the world of SVG coding, conquering "image poverty," and using everything from 3D printers to… silicone placemats? (Spoiler: Yes, you can make tactile art with your leftover kitchen supplies.)

  • Inclusive Methods for Co-Design Between Blind and Sighted Designers

    Inclusive Design 24 · 2024

    Co-design is an effective technique for Blind and sighted designers to circumvent inaccessible tools and reduce ableism in their work. This talk will introduce attendees to opportunities with current nonvisual design tools and inclusive methods for Blind and sighted designers who want to engage in inclusive co-design practices.

  • Building a Tactile Internet

    How to Fix the Internet, EFF · 2024

    Blind and low-vision people have experienced remarkable gains in information literacy because of digital technologies, like being able to access an online library offering more than 1.2 million books that can be translated into text-to-speech or digital Braille. But it can be a lot harder to come by an accessible map of a neighborhood they want to visit, or any simple diagram, due to limited availability of tactile graphics equipment, design inaccessibility, and publishing practices.

    Chancey Fleet wants a technological future that's more organically attuned to people's needs, which requires including people with disabilities in every step of the development and deployment process.

  • Keynote at UC Irvine

    UC Irvine AI Symposium · 2024

    Keynote talk as part of the 2024 UCI Workshop on the Future of Accessible Work and Generative AI, sponsored by UCI’s Steckler Center for Responsible, Ethical, and Accessible Technology.

  • InEx - Chancey Fleet

    InEx, Matt May · 2022

    Matt May interviews Chancey on his InEx Inclusive Design podcast.

  • Tek Talk welcomes Chancey Fleet

    Tek Talk Podcast · 2022

    Tek Talk with Chancey Fleet, Assistive Tech Coordinator at the New York Public Library’s Andrew Heiskell Braille & Talking Book Library, discussing the library’s many assistive technology training programs

  • De-visualizing Data

    AIGA Design Conference · 2020

    De-visualizing Data: Nonvisual Approaches to Understanding and Creating Spatial Information with Chancey Fleet.

    From infographics to Youtube explainers to memes, knowledge and self-expression are increasingly delivered through ubiquitous image and video content. Nontextual content creates barriers for people who are Blind or who learn best nonvisually. This talk will explore approaches to making the creation and understand of spatial information accessible through modalities other than vision including tactile graphics, sonification and descriptive interpretation.

Projects

Chancey's projects encapsulate teaching independence, artistic education, and improving digital accessibility worldwide.

Articles

Selected essays, blog posts, and shorter-form writing.

  • "That All May Read": Celebrating the Andrew Heiskell Library During Disability Pride Month

    NYPL Library Journal · 2025

    The library came to me before I ever came to a library. As a blind child, I rushed to our mailbox after school, peeking a hand inside to check for a plastic case carrying precious books recorded on 4-track cassettes, which I’d listen to at double speed. On summer afternoons I might hear the definitive thwack of heavy, oversized Braille books hitting the front porch and come running to unbox them.

    Today, as a library worker at Andrew Heiskell, the only Braille and talking book library in all of New York City and Long Island, it’s my privilege to connect patrons to the excitement of accessible reading, whether I’m helping a blind child choose a Twin Vision book (which features both Braille and print inside) to read with a friend, or guiding a senior patron with low vision to download her first talking book.

  • How tactile graphics can help end image poverty

    MIT Technology Review · 2023

    Access to rich imagery shouldn’t be something that blind or low-vision people have to do without. These projects are helping.

  • Images Are for Everyone: Building the Foundations for Tactile Literacy

    NFB Future Reflections · 2023

    Chancey Fleet, a technology coordinator at the New York Public Library's Braille and Talking Book Center, shares ideas for preparing blind children to create, use, and enjoy tactile graphics.

  • Accessibility, Augmented

    Urban Omnibus · 2019

    From video-enabled visual interpretation to 3D audio effects, smartphone wayfinding apps have a lot to offer Blind users. But these new features are no substitute for public infrastructure — digital or otherwise — that accounts for nonvisual navigation of the built environment.

Peer Reviewed Publications

Journal articles, conference papers, and other scholarly publications.

  • Designing While Blind: Nonvisual Tools and Inclusive Workflows for Tactile Graphic Creation

    ACM ASSETS 23 · 2023

    Blind designers are underrepresented in the field of tactile graphic design, where sighted designers routinely control the process and output on their behalf. This lack of representation is caused by inaccessible digital technology that prevents the nonvisual design of tactile graphics by Blind designers. We address these challenges by forming a Blind-led team of four Blind designers, one sighted designer, and one sighted researcher, designing tactile graphics to better understand areas of process improvement.

  • Putting Tools in Hands: Designing Curriculum for a Nonvisual Soldering Workshop

    ACM · 2020

    Blind and low vision learners are underrepresented in STEM and maker culture, both of which are historically inaccessible. In this paper we describe our experience conducting a three-day nonvisual soldering workshop and discuss the opportunities and challenges for designing accessible electronics curricula.

Media and Press

Interviews and press coverage.

  • Overcoming Information Poverty, One Tactile Graphic Image at a Time

    APH · 2025

    Most individuals understand tactile graphics as raised-surface representations of non-textual information, such as shapes, maps, and diagrams. Tactile graphics are often best exemplified in the math and science textbooks for blind and visually impaired students, such as the all too familiar triangles and photosynthesis cycles we all grew up with.  However, increasingly information is communicated en masse through rich and interactive visuals, whether it be in the news, entertainment, or mix-media.  Designed to disseminate information, ideas, and data representation, image dependency presents a level of information poverty for those individuals who cannot obtain efficient access to such information. 

  • The future of design systems is accessible

    Figma Blog · 2023

    Accessibility tools have the power to make life easier and reduce friction, but can also foster new dependencies and new limitations.

  • For blind people, technology can offer a way to perceive images through touch

    Marketplace.org · 2022

    Chancey Fleet says she wants to make sure "that the people who are living on this planet today, losing their vision or living as blind folks today, have equal access to the resources that we all deserve."

  • Blind people, advocates slam company claiming to make websites ADA compliant

    NBC News · 2021

    "If you have a website, do you want to include disabled people or do you want to exclude them? That's why it's a civil right," one expert said.

Get in Touch

Feel free to contact me through any of the following methods: