Tactile Playgrounds

WEEK 6

IT'S EVOLVING

What should Children be Aware of When Navigating Outside?

One of the primary objectives of my tool is to aid VI children in navigating their surroundings independently, effectively, and safely. To achieve this goal, I should analyse the factors within a neighbourhood that contribute to its safety and assist the VI children in learning where those areas are.

  • Pedestrian crossings.

  • Overhead bridge.

Upon analysing a map of Singapore, it is evident that several safety measures are incorporated into traffic to protect pedestrians. These include pedestrian crossings, both with and without lights, as well as overhead bridges. However, these details may not be sufficient for VI children to easily recognise or recall the locations of these pedestrian crossings and overhead bridges. Therefore, I intend to include landmarks as well, considering that Singapore has several prominent ones. Additionally, I plan to incorporate an object representing the VI child’s home, helping them to navigate based on the proximity to their home.

EXPLORATIONS WITH SOUND

  • Contunuos beeping.

  • Problem fixed.

  • I asked ChatGPT to help me solve the issues.

FIXING THE ON/OFF BUTTON

I figured out that the conductivity with foil was not good enough to make the LED turn on and off.

Due to this issue, I switched the foil with a button.

  • The LED bulb turns on and off when the button is pressed.

  • The sound and LED working at the same time.

THE DESIGN OF THE OBJECTS

To complete the discussion section for my dissertation, the only remaining part is the design of the objects. Since the concept is currently quite vague, I opted to sketch out some ideas.

  • 1.

    The objects have various tactile textures, each representing different categories. These objects will be designed based on their tactile qualities rather than their visual appearance. Having easily distinguishable tactile textures is important. For instance, if there are five different textures, each one must feel distinctly unique when touched.

  • 2.

    To enable the users to recognise and distinguish each object, they can be differentiated based on a numbering system. This means that each object would have a specific number of distinct features, with each subsequent object having a different quantity of features. The challenge with this idea could be the time the children have to explore each object and accurately determine the correct quantity of numbers associated with it. In an event, the children might inadvertently count the wrong number of features, leading them to misidentify the object.

  • 3.

    Since this is aimed for children, there can be implemented character-based objects to make it more appealing and engaging. The issue here is that the characters have to be distinctive enough for the children to differentiate them. For the current ones, seen on the sketch, they have similar features which can make it difficult to tell which one is which.

WEEKLY ROUNDUP

I am happy that I have successfully made the on/off button work with the LED, especially considering it was a big challenge for me last semester. Who would have thought ChatGPT could be of such help.

This week also signifies the very beginning of the design phase. I have finally dedicated time to sketch out how the objects can look like, although there’s ample room for improvements. The next step involves evaluating the existing designs and reviewing their strengths and weaknesses, particularly regarding how visually impaired children might respond to them.