BrailleBlocks

A BrailleBlocks user building a word with the blocks and pegs. There is a white frame on the table with rectangle slots. There are 8 slots in a row. 5 of the slots have green blocks in them which resemble Braille cells. The user is reaching for red pegs which she is placing in the block holes to create Braille letters.

BrailleBlocks is a tactile gaming system that encourages visually impaired children and their sighted family members to learn Braille together. It's comprised of a set of tangible blocks and pegs, and an associated iPad application with interactive, educational games, such as Hangman, word scramble, and an animal naming game.

Associated Researchers

Publications

Vinitha Gadiraju, Annika Muehlbradt, and Shaun K. Kane. 2020. "BrailleBlocks: Computational Braille Toys for Collaborative Learning". In: Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’20). (Honolulu, Hawaii (virtual) – April 25-30, 2020).

Vinitha Gadiraju. 2019. "BrailleBlocks: Braille Toys for Cross-Ability Collaboration". In: The 21st International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’19). (Pittsburgh, PA–Oct. 28, 2019).