CAREER: Advancing Accessible Making for People with Visual Impairments via Tactile Shape Displays

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Affordable 3D printing technologies have enabled the maker movement by giving individuals the ability to create finished physical products. However, existing computer-aided design (CAD) tools that allow authoring and editing of 3D models are not accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired due to the lack of widely available low-cost high resolution tactile displays for presenting 3D information to members of this community, and the scarcity of research and guidelines on multi-modal interaction with such displays. This work will address these issues through the development of fundamental technology supporting the creation of 2.5D refreshable and scalable tactile displays, and rigorous investigation of their use by the intended audience in the context of perception, interaction, and learning, thereby providing access to essential tools for STEM education and employment. Project outcomes will contribute to the fields of accessible user interfaces and haptic technology. Additional broad impact will derive from the resulting understanding of how better to design 3D user interfaces in general to enable wide scale use of such systems.To achieve the stated goals, this project will investigate four key research questions: (1) How can low-cost, high resolution 2.5D tactile displays be developed? (2) What interaction techniques are necessary to understand and interact with 3D information using such displays? (3) How can 3D authoring and making best be supported for members of the target community? (4) How does access to 3D printing in the wild change this community's self-efficacy of making and their opinions of STEM? To these ends, the project will focus on the following synergistic research aims: using electrostatic adhesive inchworm motor arrays to enable low-cost, high resolution 2.5D tactile displays; supporting direct manipulation and multi-modal interaction for shape understanding and authoring for makers who are blind or visually impaired; and long-term deployment of a mixed-initiative system for supporting 3D understanding and authoring, to validate the tool and its effect on self-efficacy and learning. The research agenda will be tightly integrated with a meaningful education plan, including development of informal STEM learning materials for the target audience and deployment of those materials at community workshops, as well as course development in the area of accessible user interfaces and technology, with specific attention to touch and audio interaction.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.