The basic idea was to use touch in the tactile sense to play music. Since the goal is to make an accessible musical instrument for kids who have low vision or blindness, there are some factors that are important to be considered.

• Texture: For people without vision, they rely more on tactile sense. In this project, I wanted to make the texture rather soft to get the sense of feeling safe. For children, if the products have solid texture, they might think of harmness.

• Surface: Playing music for people with low vision or blindness is challenging. It’s not that they can’t because music is more audio than visual, but it takes longer for them to memorize the place of the notes. If the surface isn’t flat, I think it would be helpful for them to memorize it.

• Elevation: Most of musical instrument differentiate the notes based on its place. The higher the pitches, the further the place for instance. But it’s harder for people with low vision or blindness. I thought adding elevation on the instrument would give clearer and more intuitive interaction for the users.

• Keep it simple: Never be too complex. It’s the key to design things for kids. If kids can’t figure out how to use things, they will get bored after some time. In this project, my idea is to place the notes only in a X axis. That way it’s easier for them to memorize notes.

 

This extension is very handy and simple enough to make the user not to think when they use it. Using this extension, users only have to focus on their camera, without thinking of external object to adjust their surroundings.