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Catalog

This design fiction contributes to offer a possibility of future tangible interface. It is dedicated to children without sight who will be able to read the comics beyond touching Braille. Rather, they can understand the form of characters through touching the texture-based interface.

The Problems

The team project of design fiction is named Tactile Reader (TR). It focuses on the issue of how children without sight are able to read the comics beyond touching the Braille (i.e. the words used by the blind). It will contribute a variety of aspects in terms reading, learning and playing experience for children to explore. The early information of TR, the potential problems and its detailed information of the proposed contribution have been listed as below:

Early information about TACTILE READER

The potential problems for Tactile Reader

Background Research

All the team members involve in doing the background research and discussion in terms of pictures and voice interaction. The background research is based case studies of kid games and people without sight are able to perceive the pictures. The background research contributes the potential solution of the app’s interface in design process.

Project Research

Case Studies

Process

Group Process is mainly recorded the group meetings and the discussion of the storyboard of video, filming and our supervisor Deb’s feedback of the design fiction.

Group Progress:

Group works

After tutor’s feedback

Solution

According to background research and the discussion with group members, the solution focuses on voice interaction and the texture design of materials in interface part. The purpose is to ensure that children without sight are able to have a smooth experience when they are reading the comics.

The texture design of materials

The texture design for comic characters

The reflective process of interface design

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Reflective Writing

The individual reflection based on personal experience during the project approach.

At the earlier stage, the student found one of the potential issues for coming project design is the understanding the project target audiences. According to research, the student has general knowledge about that children behavior are different from teenagers or adults as well as their ability of ideation. Moreover, for children, the group without sight act differently from the normal. Since all group members think naturally in adult perspective, the student agrees with the study of brain function and behavior of children is significant to the project. Along with the project progress, the study of children behavior is reflected on many sections of Tactile Reader such as the story choosing, voice acting, guiding system and project interactivity. Team member Jen and the student cooperated at story finding stage. By studying the existing exemplars, the student realized the stories do not have to be literarily understood by children but make sense to them. Accidently, Jen and the student were inspired by the representing method of an existing product which is moving still image accompanied by sound. Two members concluded the finding would influence the actual design in order to produce effective project as well as reduce the time consuming.    

After the researching, the student contributed the practical section mostly. Tangible collages are compulsory needed for project making. The student took responsibility to finish all collages which are participant to the prototype video. Time consuming in collage part has beyond the student expectation. Meanwhile, the actual results lightly disappointed the student. The quality of collages are not as good as student thought. However, it worked on the kid who were invited as actor for the final video.

Later on, the student contributed to the interactivity displaying part of the product video, which is about to present the hand of the student with the intention of making the scene looks like a kid is using Tactile Reader. All team members are involved in this video stage and go through a number of re-recordings since the ‘actual app’ in the video is a fake composition which requires the student intentional action for presenting a live using experience.            

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Reflective Writing

Tactile Reader is a really great idea from Iris. This topic has positive meaning for the children without sight. 

As a great team, We did a lot of effort on background research period. We understood the current trend in this field. We found several similar applications and advanced techniques which are useful for our project. We learned a lot of related knowledge and techniques from this project. 

personally, my responsibility is the voice and sound part. On the one hand, I should understand the current condition of the voice interaction comics area. I analyze the working theories of some current applications, websites and educational devices. There are some specialtiies. Firstly, the voice of story telling is simple and slow. Most of sentences are active sentences. So that children can easy to understand and follow up. Secondly, the user interface and the movement of interaction is not complex. Children just need to push one or two buttons so the story can keep going. Because our potential users are the children without sigh. I advise to not only increase the efficient voice guide but also decrease the unnecessary buttons and functions in our application. 

On the other hand, I afforded the background music part. We decided to use two Japanese music which have slight different rhythms. The slow and emotional music is suitable for our first part of video. The happy music which we used as second part can show the enjoyable and agreeable emotion when people are using our application.

Finally, this project is accomplished so peaceful, because I can work and study with Iris, Jen and Cindy. We can communicated with each other to exchange our idears and advices. Iris and Jen made effort to find little kid and record the video material. Cindy did beautiful craft design which was successful represented our design concepts. I appreciate their efforts. As my personal perspect, I should learn more about the software of video edition and the design methods of interface. 

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The reflective log of the process

First of all, it is a very impressive concept that I am really appreciate to Iris, and thank you for all the group members because we have a pleasant collaboration during the period!

Personally, my responsibility in this project is to mock-up the interface. Besides, I also did background research and involved the recording of the part of ‘voice interaction’ that Allen wrote the dialogue. In addition, it was very lucky that a kind little girl Zoe and her mother would like to help us to record the dialogue of child’s voice part.

With regard to the process, the positive part should be the part of research and the communicative part. However, in my case, technical skill of Photoshop could be improved better. During that period, I found some design materials and use an ux design software that Iris provided to me to overcome the limitation. Both of these helped me to make a better output of the interface. Regarding the interface, the interactivity of the interface was considered quite a lot because our users are people without sight. In other words, it needs to be considered building a high comfortable and smooth interactive experience between the user and the device. That is why we discussed a lot for the voice interaction part and built it carefully in this project. In addition, I also realised that the interface of book list would be over my capability to finish it, and asked Iris to do this part based on her previous one in Tactile Painter. The outcome meets the brief of the specific problem area, although the interface design that I made is merely at a very beginning part so that I call most of them as “the draft”. However, thanks for the pictures as Allen provided, I could improve the interface based on these materials.

Particularly, I should thank Zoe’s mum who contributed to teach Zoe, a very nice and lovely 9-year-old girl, to be more emotional when reading out the dialogue. The recording was made twice, and Zoe made it very well after she was kind of familiar with the dialogue. 

Overall, I am so appreciate this design fiction, make a right decision pitch it and collaborate with Iris, Cindy and Allen. However, personally, I need to develop my technique skill to deliver the visual design more effective.

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Tactile Reader booklist

This is Tactile Reader booklist page. We have various ranges of story books and comics for the blind children to read. We using the protagonist from each stories for children to recognize different stories. We also have braille and voice to guide them.

There are four main buttons in this page, which are questioning button, continue reading button, collecting booklist button and new books button.

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This background research is knowledge support to Tactile Reader. Although the child without sight is different from the normal, the similarity for every child’s brain function gives design suggestion to the team.  

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Overview:

“Touch the Prado” is a painting exhibition especially for the different degrees of sight-impaired people. Several high-resolution 3-dimensional replica of world famous paintings was exhibited such as “ Mona Lisa”, “The Parasol”, “Apollo in the Forge of Vulcan” and “Noli Me Tangere”. These copies of masterpieces use new technology which called didu 3D printing technique to achieve well details description by simulating the real objects. In these case, the blinds is able to visualize the artworks in their brain better than before. In this exhibition, they actually provide the braille-based educational materials, audio guides for visitors so that sight-impaired people, particuler the blind people are able to have an experience of art with these 3D printed paintings.

Project problem (technical context):

This problem of this project is addressed on how can people ‘see’ the paintings without using their eyes.  They actually solve this problem by the new technology which called Didu 3D printing technique rather than the other pringting technique. The original 3D printing helped sight-impaired people with visual art. However, didu can allow these people truly feel the artworks. This is because the outcome of this printer actually include textures and features like the real objects of the painting details to enhace the touch sensation. This helps the blinds to understand the painting much better. Didu is created by Bilbao, Spain-based design agency Estudios Durero, which describes the technique on their website as “relief printing which allows us to get closer to art in a different way” by adding volume and texture to what is usually a flat representation.

Audience:

This audiences of this exhibition are indeed the visually impaired people. They also provide opaque glasses to enhance the experience for fully-sighted visitors.

Impact:

By touch these paintings, the blind is able to use their hands to reach and touch the master visualize the artworks in their brain. They have more opportunities to understand more about the external world. In particular that the blinds have the opportunity to know and understand what are those paintings looks like and might inspire them to create their own artworks. In addition, it might also develop the blind’s emotion to some degrees.

Findings:

From this exhibition, we recognize that the blinds are able to visualize the images through their touch sensation. This is because some of them used to see or can see a little bit of the surrondings. However, the other blinds, especially who borned with blindness, also have this visualizaion ability. Morton Heller, who is the expert on blind psychology, claims that the blinds can visualize the objects in their brains by touching things. This means the blinds can actually know what the objects looks like, but with no shadows and no color. This is because the brain region neuroscientists normally think of as the “visual” cortex, rather than being left to languish, plays a key role in the blind’s mental mapping process. After touching things, the brain analyize the information from touch sensation then echo as generating spatial maps in blind’s brain. In this way, the blinds can visualize the things they touched just like images what the others see.

In this case, Tactile Reader is without a doubt able to provide a visual experience for the blind children through tactile images.

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Relective writting--Yarui Wang

As a member of Tactile Reader group, I contribute to the following points:

1.  Organzing group works

2. Shot the videos (especially the environment part and the little gril’s part)

3.  Help record the group progress

4. Research for the proplem area (especially the articles for blind children’s vision need) 

5. I design the Tactile Reader icon and the loading page

6. I make the the interactive part on the picture through FLASH 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8waABnVe21M

7. I did some background researchs to answer these questions:

Do the visual impaired children need to read picture books?

How do they read? (Blind can visualize images by touch sensation)

What are the supporting technologies? (tactile screen)

8. I design the video prototype

9. I edit the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzAEKwR39U

10. I participate on designing the booklist page

These are the main works I contribute. I am very happy that I can work on this project with my lovely group members. As a creative practitioner in interactive design area, I really concer about designing the apps which can really help people. I really interest in changing impossibility to possibility. Therefore, the Tactile Reader exist. Designing for the people who seeks help really encourage me. Although I don’t come from interactive design background, I’ve tried my best to design the app. I see my big improvement this semester. I’ve learned a lot from Debra in the class. I feel very lucky to study from her.

Tactile Reader is a development based on Tactile painter, because it is more perfect. We did more researches, especially on the blind children psychology and behavior part. We consider children’s activity, interests, behavior and guiding approaches. We even consider children’s patience and the way to catch their attentions while they are using this app.  This is an achievement of Tactile Reader. This is because we not only design the interfaces, we also think the users feeling and experience in depth.

While doing this project, I also did several achivement myself. My first making icon, first designing the interfaces, first designing as an UI/UX designer and first working in a group as a leader.

However, there are still some problems I concer about Tactile Reader -- the database, tactile screen and the voice guiding. In the first, we need a huge database for tactile reader. We will going to collect the images? Who will going to make the 2D images into tactile images? Who will going to organize this database? Should Tactile Reader a free apps or not?  The second problem is relating to the tactile screen. The only way this app exist is based on a tactile screen. I hope in the future, this high-tech device will become popular. The last thing I concer is about the voice guiding. As you know, Tactile Reader needs voice to guide the blind children. Therefore, it has voice interaction. The problem is how to lead the children effectively and how to receive the information from blind children’s voice correctly. We need to make sure everything goes right and not affect the children’s using experience. This is still a problem we need to achieve for Tactile Reader in the future. It seems not possible for us to solve at moment. We need people from the related area to help.

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Tactile Reader video prototype

This is the prototype for tactile reader introducing video.

These scenes tell the story of blind children’s visual world. The only pattern and image they get from outside world is based on these dull dots.

Although they are able to hear the voices from outside world, it is still not enough.

Their lives are just like yours and mine, but without images. Although other people tell them how’s everything looks like, they still don’t get it.

In addition, it is also impossible for them to experience the digital world. They seek equal opportunities to read, to watch the pictures, comics and animations like the other child. They want to know more about this world.

There is one way for them to watch these images-- by touch. Blinds are able to visualize the images in their brains by touch the tactile images.

That’s why Tactile Reader exist. Tactile Reader is a smart, electronic tool, which offers visual experiences to blind children by electronic tactile screen. It also has voice guide and voice interaction to help these children engage in the 2D world. It has various ranges of images such as cartoon, story book, comics and animate story, for blind children to read.

They are able to ask questions or do other interactions by touch the screen or by their voice. Also, their parents can help them to recognize the images and have fun with their children in Tactile Reader world.

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This research is about the studying of Deaf-Blind Children behavior with the purpose of assisting Tactile Reader to provide an effective interactive experience  

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There is a similar case which called Tesla Touch.

Overview:

Haptic technology is the technology offering the touch sensation feedback from screen. TeslaTouch is one of the hapic technologies which is able to allow the users to use their sense of touch the screen to feel virtual objects. This computer simulated  technology also allows the users to control such virtual objects, and to enhance the remote control of machines and devices. In other words, tactile touch technology is a technology for the users to touch the visual objects on the screen with simulated objects touch sensation. The simulated touch sensations is created by dynamic friction between the finger and the surface of the panel which based on electrovibration principle. Changes in friction are periodic and result in dynamic tactile textures on a mechanically static glass surface. Depending on signal amplitude and frequency, these textures are perceived as either vibrations or friction. TeslaTouch can be combined with multiple sensing techniques, such as capacitive sensing or FTIR strategies, commonly used in the design of large touch surfaces. 

Project problem:

Not widely using is the main peoblem of this technology. This is because this technology needs special screen to support and a power support problem. It is unlikely to use the battery power to support at moment. This limitation causes it cannot be widely used on smart phones, ipad and the other portable devices. However, this problem would be solved in the future. This technology is still developing. It is not well known especialy in the developing countries.

However, TeslaTouch technology absolutely can help the visually impaired people on visualizing the objects on the screen. It offers them to control the devices more easily and provides them more visual experiences.

The advantage of TeslaTouch is it is inexpensive, lightweight and requires little power than the other tactile touch technologies. In addition, TeslaTouch can be easily combined with a wide range of touch sensing technologies and augment touch-screen applications on handheld devices and larger touch screens like interactive tables.

Audience and impact:

This technology can be used in the museum to enhance visiters’ experiences of the exhibit items which are normally behind glass. It can also allowing visitors who live far from museums to feel objects at a distance, letting visually-impaired and blind people feel exhibits. It also can be used on game design that enhance the interaction experiences of players while they touch to play. It could use on poasters, maps and other images media. And, in particulaly for the visually impaired.

Findings:

From TeslaTouch technology I find out the potential of a electronic tactile reading tool for blind children. There is no doubt that this tactile touch screen technology would be widely used on portable devices. Therefore,Tactile Reader can use this tech-end equipment to make electronic tactile reading tool.

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This is the Bambi story video. We use the sound of this video in our final video.

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(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctzAEKwR39U)

This is the introduction video of Tactile Reader. This story tells that the only ways the blind chilren recognize this world are by voice and touch sensation. However, they also seek to recognize the visual world. In Tactile Reader, they are able to read the picture books as other children by using their touch sensation. This application offers them an amazing ‘vision’ experience.

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This tangible technological product is a comforting achivement to its target group. Children with cerebral palsy not only are able to play the game as the normal but also play with others. 

In general, to solve the difficulty that the ‘special’ children face to is the initial purpose of these types of technologies. ARATLab provided a technical support which helps the children out and builds interactivity between them and the normal as well. 

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The video displays a concept which is similar to Tactile Reader, that is to utilize technology to assist children who have lack of opportunity to appereciate the ejoyment in their lives as others. 

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We use this music as second part of background music in our final video. This music is created by famous Japanese musician Maeda Jun.

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We use this music as first part of background music in our final video. This music is created by famous Japanese musician Yukie Nishimura.