Designing with and for people living with visual impairments: audio-tactile mock-ups, audio diaries and participatory prototyping

Abstract

Methods used to engage users in the design process often rely on visual techniques, such as paper prototypes, to facilitate the expression and communication of design ideas. The visual nature of these tools makes them inaccessible to people living with visual impairments. In addition, while using visual means to express ideas for designing graphical interfaces is appropriate, it is harder to use them to articulate the design of non-visual displays. In this article, we present an approach to conducting participatory design with people living with visual impairments incorporating various techniques to help make the design process accessible. We reflect on the benefits and challenges that we encountered when employing these techniques in the context of designing cross-modal interactive tools.

Keywords::

• low-fi non-visual design
• mock-ups
• participatory prototyping
• visual impairments
• accessibility
• assistive technology
• auditory display
• haptics
• tactile feedback
• multimodal interaction
• cross-modal interaction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1.http://www.dentsable.com/haptic-phantom-omni.htm

^2.http://www.novint.com/index.php/novintfalcon

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of the Design Patterns for Inclusive Collaboration (DePIC) project which is sponsored by EPSRC [grant number EP/J017205].