Checkers for the Visually Impaired
Inspiration
After reading an article about a 3D printing design competition, I was inspired by a designer who created a Rubik's Cube for the visually impaired. He created caps for each tile with small braille-like bosses to distinguish different colors. Rather than being over-engineered, his solution was refreshingly simple and elegant.
Challenge
As a personal project, I wanted to brainstorm, research, and create an entertainment product for those who are visually impaired. I liked the challenge of dealing with significant design constraints to entice more creative, user-centered solutions. I found myself gravitating towards checkers, a game I played a lot with my family growing up.
Market Research
I first wanted to establish what products were already on the market and analyze their design. I found three existing designs of checkers for the visually impaired.
MaxiAids Tactile Checkers Set (1)
+ Different geometry atop circular pieces
+ Pieces held into base with bosses
- Pieces can be easily knocked out of place
- Pieces are very small
MaxiAids Tactile Checkers Set (2)
+ Square and circular pieces
+ Pieces cannot be knocked out of place
- Pieces are hard to remove
LS&S Magnetic Checkers
+ Square and circular pieces
- Large
- Expensive
- Cannot hover piece over board (magnetic)
Ideation
After analyzing the pros and cons of the competitor products, I sketched out some design concepts to further explore and created CAD models to visualize one concept more closely.
Concept Exploration
Through my 3D Fundamentals art course at Northeastern, I had the opportunity to evolve this personal project into an academic one with a partner. We brainstormed more concepts, created paper models, and quickly mocked up a miniature board to experiment with handle geometries, spacing, and overall dimensions.
Fabrication
To create the final board, I used a variety of wood shop tools including a chop saw, band saw, drill press, belt sander, and laser cutter. We made sure the board was well sanded to keep all interaction points smooth yet still easily recognizable through touch. We also lightly stained the board using a few coats of oil. The checkers pieces were 3D printed using hobby-grade desktop FDM printers.
Final Model
The completed board has a tactile frame for users to easily identify the boundaries of the game. The pieces sit within small pockets in the board, allowing users to graze their hand across the board to feel the location of pieces without knocking them over. Each team's pieces are distinctly different geometrically, while offering a small handle for users to easily pick up pieces from their pockets. The pieces can also stack on top of each other to "king.” All the pieces were printed in white and rest within white spaces to emphasize that this version of checkers relies only on touch to play.
Next Steps
In order to truly understand the functionality and effectiveness of the game's design, I plan to contact local organizations and a family friend to test the board with visually impaired users.