rise

A CONCEPTUALIZED 2 PART DEVICE AND APP ECOSYSTEM DESIGNED TO RISE BRAILLE LITERACY

TIME FRAME—
6 weeks

MY ROLE—
Research
UX Design
Product Design
Branding

COLLABORATORS—
Individually worked on this end-to-end

TOOLS—
Sketch
Invision
Rhino
Illustrator

BACKGROUND
Initially, I wanted to find a way to make art more accessible to those who are blind. To gain a deeper understanding of my audience and their needs, I looked into common struggles faced by this demographic. As I researched, one of the most apalling details I came across was the braille illiteracy rate. According to the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), there are over 285 million people worldwide who are visually impaired — That’s a lot of people. Less than 10% of that population knows braille. In other words, over 90% of the visually impaired population is braille illiterate. Although, there is an increase in assistive technologies for those who are blind, technology should not replace braille because as print is to sighted people, braille is to those who are blind. 

I shifted gears and was motivated to figure out a way to provide a platform for braille accessibility because literacy is critical to not just the development of an individual, but attributes to the development of our society and economy; As Louis Braille said so well, "Braille is knowledge, and knowledge is power."

CHALLENGE
Accessibility to tools to learn braille prove difficult. Braille machines, keyboards and books are thousands of dollars, and to top it off are bulky and unportable. 

In the current market, there isn't a tool that makes learning braille easy. 

GOAL
Build an accessible, portable, and affordable ecosystem with a braille learning app paired with a refreshable braille display tablet.

In essence, where duolingo meets braille.

TIPS FROM DR. PENNY ROSENBLUM

My first step was to define my audience: people who are blind. My next step was to understand how to get to my goal: I had to learn braille first to understand the best method to teach braille easily. While on this scavenger hunt, the best lessons I found were from Dr. Penny Rosenblum, Research Professor in the Department of Disabilities and Psychoeducational Studies at the University of Arizona. After learning about Dr. Penny's background, I wanted to pitch my project to her and learn more about braille and if the information I was gathering was accurate. I reached out and had a meeting with her. I learned a ton.

The most important thing I learned was that my defined audience was wrong. 

MAIN TAKEAWAYS
1 | NFB's stat [mentioned in background] is heavily inflated; 'visually impaired' defines a spectrum of vision loss, but defined problem is still prevalent.
2 | Do not use the term 'blind' — indefinite. The primary audience should be tactile learners. 
3 | Majority of the 285 million that are visually impaired are over age 60 with low vision.
4 | Main braille users have congenital visual disabilities with varying vision loss.

Curated for low vision. APHont font was developed for low vision readers with characteristics shown to enhance reading speed, comprehension, and comfort. According to the American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), high contrast colors are best and dark blues are most effective for headlines. 

lessons based off of certified curriculum by Dr. Penny Rosenblum

TIPS FROM ISMAEL, INCLUSIVE DESIGNER 

I connected with Ismael, an Inclusive Designer at Microsoft, to better understand how to design for people who are visually imparied because I had no idea. The main idea was to make sure I designed the app like a naked HTML document because text-to-speech technologies work from top to bottom, left to right; Having primary, secondary, teritary, etc. screens proved important. The initial long-scroll design, framed like duolingo, was not the right way to design my braille learning app. Instead, I designed a much simpler user interface and moved the nav bar to the top for ease of use. He also suggested to have multiple indicators to affirm user interactions. With visually imparied users, it was important to provide auditory cues and haptic feedback. 

TIPS FROM JASON, INDUSTRIAL DESIGNER

I built a spec sheet of the refreshable braille display tablet, used Rhino, a 3D modeling software, and 3D printed a copy for user testing. I spoke with Jason, an Industrial Designer at Chef'n Corporation and he advised the materials of the device to be ABS plastic for the outershell and silicone for the flexible layer used to display the braille characters. 

Organize user research with people who are visually impaired and tactile learners. Talk to them and figure out how to make the product better and best places to implement this product.