Spaghetti, Sink and Sarcophagus: Design Explorations of Tactile Artworks for Visually Impaired People

Abstract

Technology holds significant value for supporting visually impaired people in experiencing cultural heritage. Creating tactile adaptions of artifacts or paintings is a challenging task that comprises the need for a careful surface design, a good choice of material and interaction design sensible to the needs and abilities of the target group. This work presents three design explorations aiming at better understanding material qualities and effective interaction modalities. Along with a description of the design explorations, we present feedback from visually impaired museum visitors collected in field trials.