Authors

Yang Jiao, Ruoting Sun, Rong Luo, Xiwen Yao, Xinran She, Kotaro Hara, Yuewen Zhang, Xinyi Fu

Publication

ASSETS '25: Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility Article No.: 29, Pages 1 - 14

Abstract

Tactile graphics on a refreshable display have proven effective in enabling visually impaired people to comprehend pictorial content. To further evaluate the effectiveness of refreshable tactile displays in blind education, we designed tactile data comics, a method that combines step-by-step presentation of tactile graphics with verbal narration. We conducted a user study with sixteen visually impaired students to compare tactile data comics against verbal-only and static tactile graphics. Our findings show that tactile data comics significantly improve participants’ comprehension and engagement during the learning experience. These empirical results suggest that the integration of refreshable tactile displays and tactile data comics represents a promising approach to enhancing the accessibility and effectiveness of tactile learning tools, with further exploration needed into affordability, usability, and extended applications.

Paper

Tactile Data Comics: Combining Step-by-step Presentation of Tactile Graphics with Verbal Narration for the Blind and Visually Impaired | Proceedings of the 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility

Refreshable tactile displays (RTDs) could present dynamic tactile graphics to support blind and low-vision individuals in learning. However, existing research offers limited evidence on the effectiveness of dynamic tactile graphics on RTDs in supporting ...

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