Tactile Aids for Visually Impaired Graphical Design Education

Samantha McDonald, Joshua Dutterer, Ali Abdolrahmani, Shaun Kane, Amy Hurst UMBC

1000 Hilltop Circle Baltimore MD, 21250

{ sam30, dutter1, aliab1, skane, amyhurst } @umbc.edu

ABSTRACT

In this demonstration, we describe our exploration in making graphic design theory accessible to a visually impaired student with the use of rapid prototyping tools. We created over 10 novel aids with the use of a laser cutter and 3D printer to demonstrate tangible examples of color theory, type face, web page layouts, and web design. These tactile aids were inexpensive and fabricated in a relatively small amount of time, suggesting the feasibility of our approach. The participant’s feedback concluded an increased understanding of the class material and confirmed the potential of tactile aids and rapid prototyping in an educational environment.

Categories and Subject Descriptors

K.4.2 [Social Issues]: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

General TermsDesign, Experimentation.

KeywordsVisual Graphics; Visually Impaired; Graphics Education, Visual Aid; Tactile Aids; 3D Printing; Rapid Prototyping

1. IntroductionClasses that focus on graphics and web design include vision based topics such as color, grid layouts, font families, font types, and alphanumeric character spacing. Traditionally, these topics are taught through visual images and examples, a technique that is not accessible to individuals with limited or no vision. This paper describes our efforts to create tangible representations of fundamental graphic design concepts using rapid prototyping tools. These instructional aids were created for a visually impaired student taking an introduction to human-centered computing class with a unit on graphic design. All designs were created and tested in a three week span. We first describe our techniques to generate these instructional aids followed by our evaluation of the experiment.

2. ConstructionOur visual tactile aids were derived from traditional images and concepts of the student’s graphic design class. We focused on one specific unit of the class with a high density of visual graphics. The class images were converted into 3D printable and laser cut designs for tactile creation. The tactile aids were fabricated from acrylic, wood, and thermoplastic elastomer filament. Each tactile created was similar if not identical to the images directly taken from the class slides. However to avoid content clutter, small changes were made to the graphics in order to minimize misdirection and an overload of class material. For example, in Figure 1 we see a tactile tool used to compare serif and sans serif fonts. The original class images provided for Figure 1 also labeled certain parts of the serif letter like counter, stroke, and ascender. These labels did not assist in the tactile comparison of serif and sans serif fonts and were removed. Other tactile tools like Figure 2 represent an example of information separation. The left image depicts a grid anatomy to display web design layout topics like column, row, and spatial zones. The tactiles created from this grid anatomy were separated into different tactile tools to minimize clutter. This method provided the student with a better understanding of broad concepts without interference of extra material.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author. Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). ASSETS'14, October 20–22, 2014, Rochester, NY, USA. ACM978-1-4503-2720-6/14/10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2661334.2661392

Figure 1. Participant examining the difference between serif and sans serf fonts

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3. Evaluation Giving the user the ability to design and give input in their technology can improve the successfulness of the product [1]. Each design was shared with the participant in class and designated meetings in order to receive as much feedback and suggestions from the participant as possible. Originally, we described the tactile aids to the participant as he was feeling the object. After the course unit was over we provided improved tactile images to the participant. Without explanation of the image or educational purpose, we evaluated the participants understanding of the concepts represented through the tactile aids.

4. Findings By the end of evaluations, our participant noticed an increased real time understanding of class material and increased emotional satisfaction in the material taught. The participant could follow along with the rest of the class on certain material without feeling behind or lost. Although our participant is unable to read Braille; the participant could previously read printed text and can still recognize alphanumeric letter shapes. The ability to read alphanumeric letters made it easier to explain and educate the participant on type face and font styles. During the study, we also noticed a set of findings that could be useful for the future of tactile creation. In terms of creating raised alphanumeric characters, one issue was the shape and structure of the English letters. Some words like ‘COLUMN’ are much harder for our participant to read as a result of too many raised vertical lines. For examples the letters ‘L’,’U’,’M’, and ‘N’ have a total of seven vertical lines. This can cause the user to misinterpret the word as a set of vertical lines instead of a readable word. We addressed this concern by adding space between each letter and by providing larger filled letters that are easier to differentiate. Our participant also noted it was easier to read capitalized words. This could be because of the naturally increased size and spacing of capital letters. When looking at the topic of fonts, the larger and more oversized the letters, the easier it was for the participant to identify the shape.

Another finding was the type of material used. Time restraints during the rapid prototyping phase required a more flexible use of materials. The first rounds of designs were cut on standard hardwood. This later proved to be an ineffective material for tactile tools. The participant complained of finger exhaustion after using the wooden tactile for a long period of time. The wood was too grainy and eventually dulled the sensations of touch in the participant’s fingers, not allowing him to differentiate the raised and unraised parts of the tactile. A switch to acrylic and 3D plastic filament soon resolved this issue.

5. Discussion Given the diversity of student preferences and learning styles, creating a general set of tactile aids creates difficulties with a variety of needs for each student. However, simplistic computer programs and scanning techniques can make it easier for 2D visuals to be adapted and customized into 3D tactile aids at a fast rate. Future studies that can make it easier for the student and teacher to scan and print designs on their own can provide a more flexible and creative system. Combining the idea of visually impaired programming with tactile aids, future research can study a student’s ability to print their own customizable tactile aids [2].

This research also addresses the field of web development. As the industry of web development and web design grows, so does the need for workers that are educated in the fields of graphics and graphic development. Making these topics more accessible and understandable to the visually impaired community is necessary in order modernize and stay up to date on necessary educational concepts.

6. Conclusion Our research improved a single student’s ability to understand graphical concepts and provided a demonstration of accessible 3D printed and laser cut designs created in fast and customizable manner. When given proper visual aids, a visually impaired student can learn and explore ideas in the topics of graphical and digital design.

7. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Our thanks to our participant and the University of Maryland Baltimore County Information Systems Department for providing this opportunity.

8. REFERENCES [1] Amy Hurst and Shaun Kane. 2013. Making "Making"

accessible. In Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 635-638.

[2] Shaun K. Kane and Jeffrey P. Bigham. 2014. Tracking @stemxcomet: teaching programming to blind students via 3D printing, crisis management, and twitter. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education (SIGCSE '14). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 247-2522

Figure 2. Left image is a Grid Anatomy Graphic taken from class slides (1). Right images depict the front (2) and back (3) of the grid anatomy based tactile tool representing a row. The arrow in image 3 directs tactile orientation.

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