The Tyrants, Heroes and Victims Narrative in Accessibility Tracks Papers of the Brazilian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems

Previous studies indicated that some practices in the Interaction Design-related technical communication advocate considering users as victims unable to solve their own problems and bestowing a paternal role to the designer. These practices sometimes occur in User-Centered Design (UCD) literature, offering a risk of compromising the focus on the user proposed by the UCD theories, by unempowering the users and removing them from the productive process. This paper proposes a method for analysing content of papers on accessibility-related tracks of the latest editions of the Brazillian Symposium on Human Factors in Computer Systems to investigate whether the appropriations of UCD in the publications are unempowering users through a narrative trope called "Tyrants, Heroes and Victims", defined by Clay Spinuzzi, or empowering narratives are employed in writing. We expect that this paper will serve as an exposition of the usage, and the risks, of unempowering narratives in the Interaction Design community.