Design Process
Design Spiral showing 3 phases of project: Induction, Iterative Co-Design and Prototyping, Evaluation
Approach to Design
This project used qualitative methods to ensure sighted bias was limited and lived experience of blind and partially sighted participants with an art and design background was amplified. The research is longitudinal in nature, by iteratively working with a small number of BPSI drawers over an extended period of time through participatory design. Participatory Design (PD) is an iterative approach to research that involves exploration, discovery, prototyping and assessment. It aims for “[participants] and researchers to critically examine the impacts of... incremental redesigns in progress” (Spinuzzi, 2005). The research was conducted through phases of Induction, Iterative Co-Design and Evaluation
Induction Phase
While in the process of REB approval I conducted observations from publicly available videos of blind individuals drawing as well as a literature review on current state of drawing tools. Following REB approval I conducted semi-structured interviews with 2 blind and partially sighted participants from art and design backgrounds. The gaps found informed the next phase of iterative co-design and prototyping.
Iterative Co-Design
Based on understanding of challenges with drawing from the induction phase of the project I explored components of a drawing toolkit for BPSI through an iterative process including co-design sessions with the participants of the study. I initially conducted a blind folded materials exploration and identified strengths and challenges with different materials.
Our initial co-design sessions informed the development of a Storyboard (Prototype 1) that offered opportunities for spatial design through geometric construction tiles and consisted of a digital component to share creations.Our next step involved the development of a Wizard of Oz (Prototype 2) to test the experience of scanning geometric tiles to create digital models. We further developed the analog components of the drawing toolkit(Prototype 3) from our findings by 3D printing shapes and creating wax sticks. Additional off the shelf components such as PlayDoh and loop scissors were added based on findings. Prototype 4 was created to test the feasibility of scanning a 3D geometric shape and creating a virtual 3D model
Evaluation
The analog version of the prototype was tested through an evaluation phase where participants used and assessed the analog components of the toolkit by creating a range of representations.