Designing Accessible Adaptations for an Electronic Toolkit with Blind and Low Vision Users
Jacqueline Johnstone, Madhuka Nadeeshani, Hanmin Chen, Mohith Vemula, Erica J Tandori, Kate Stephens, Hashini Senaratne, Kirsten Ellis, Swamy Ananthanarayan · 2024 · ASSETS '24: Proceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663548.3675652
Summary
This paper presents the co-design and evaluation of accessible adaptations to an existing modular electronic toolkit (Bricktronics) to make electronics learning accessible to blind and low vision (BLV) users. Computational and electronics toolkits are widely used in STEM education and maker activities, but are overwhelmingly designed for sighted users, relying on visual cues like colour coding, printed labels, and visual circuit diagrams that exclude BLV learners. The researchers worked with BLV participants across two phases: first, co-design sessions to develop adaptations, and then an evaluation study with nine BLV participants. The adaptations centred on three key innovations. First, 3D-printed circuit templates with raised channels and tactile guides that physically constrain component placement, allowing users to build circuits by following tactile pathways rather than reading diagrams. Second, NFC (Near Field Communication) tags embedded in components that, when scanned with a phone, provide audio identification of the component and its specifications — addressing the fundamental problem that electronic components like resistors, LEDs, and capacitors are visually identical to touch. Third, braided textile connectors with distinct tactile textures replacing standard wires, enabling users to trace connections by feel and distinguish between different circuit paths. Additional adaptations included braille labels, raised dot markings for polarity, and tactile differentiation of component sizes. A core design principle was redundancy — providing multiple ways to identify the same component (NFC audio, tactile shape, braille label, texture) so that users could choose their preferred modality.
Key findings
All nine BLV participants successfully built circuits of increasing complexity using the adapted toolkit, progressing from simple single-LED circuits to multi-component circuits with resistors and switches. The 3D-printed templates were the most valued adaptation — participants described them as "training wheels" that gave confidence to experiment without fear of incorrect connections. The NFC component identification was praised for providing on-demand information without requiring memorisation, though some participants found the phone scanning process slow and preferred to learn components by tactile feel after initial identification. The braided connectors were highly valued for circuit tracing — participants could follow a specific textured wire through a complex circuit to understand the path of current flow, something impossible with standard smooth wires. Redundancy proved essential: different participants gravitated toward different identification methods based on their vision level, tactile sensitivity, and prior electronics experience. Participants with some residual vision preferred high-contrast visual markings combined with tactile cues, while totally blind participants relied more on NFC and braille. The evaluation revealed that BLV participants developed strong mental models of circuit concepts through hands-on tactile exploration, with several participants articulating circuit principles (series vs. parallel, voltage division) that they had previously found abstract and inaccessible through verbal or textual descriptions alone. Participants expressed strong desire for the toolkit to be available in educational settings, noting that electronics courses they had encountered offered no accessible alternatives.
Relevance
This research demonstrates that STEM education tools can be made accessible to BLV users through thoughtful adaptation rather than ground-up redesign, an approach with practical scalability implications. The strategy of adapting an existing commercial toolkit rather than creating a completely new one means the accessibility adaptations could potentially be applied to other modular electronics platforms. For accessibility practitioners and educators, the redundant multimodal identification principle — providing the same information through multiple sensory channels (tactile, audio, braille, visual contrast) — is broadly applicable to any learning material or tool. The success of 3D-printed templates as scaffolding structures suggests a general approach: creating physical guides that constrain possible actions to correct ones, reducing the need for visual monitoring. The NFC-based component identification is a transferable technique applicable beyond electronics to any domain where objects need to be identified non-visually (laboratory equipment, craft supplies, cooking ingredients). The work also highlights a significant equity gap in STEM education — BLV students are systematically excluded from hands-on electronics and maker activities that are increasingly central to computing education.
Tags: blind and low vision · electronics education · co-design · digital fabrication · 3D printing · NFC · tactile design · STEM accessibility · modular toolkit