skip to main content
10.1145/3628516.3659411acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesidcConference Proceedingsconference-collections
extended-abstract

Designing for Tinkerability and Accessibility: Developing the OctoStudio mobile app to engage blind and visually impaired learners in creating with code

Published: 17 June 2024 Publication History

Abstract

Millions of children around the world learn to code by creating with Scratch and other block-based programming languages. However, these programming environments typically are not accessible for blind and visually impaired children to tinker, create, and learn alongside their sighted peers. This paper discusses the ongoing development of the OctoStudio coding app to support accessibility and tinkerability for blind and visually impaired learners. We discuss how we have applied core principles of tinkerability to create an accessible, mainstream app for use on mobile phones and tablets. We describe our iterative development process in collaboration with educators who specialize in the design and testing of accessible technologies for children. We conclude with suggestions for how the core principles of designing for tinkerability can be expanded to support accessibility and engagement of blind and visually impaired learners internationally.

References

[1]
Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, and Stephanie Ludi. 2022. Accessible Blockly: An accessible block-based programming library for people with visual impairments. In Proceedings of the 24th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 19, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3517428.3544806
[2]
Aboubakar Mountapmbeme, Obianuju Okafor, and Stephanie Ludi. 2022. Addressing accessibility barriers in programming for people with visual impairments: A literature review. ACM Trans. Access. Comput 15, 1, Article 7 (2022), 26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3507469
[3]
Andreas Stefik, Willliam Allee, Gabriel Contreras, Timothy Kluthe, Alex Hoffman, Brianna Blaser, and Richard Ladner. 2024. Accessible to Whom? Bringing Accessibility to Blocks. In Proceedings of the 55th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 1 (SIGCSE 2024). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1286–1292. https://doi.org/10.1145/3626252.3630770
[4]
Katarina Bulovic. 2022. Designing for Tinkerability for Accessibility. Master’s thesis. Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
[5]
Alastair Craig. 2019. Designing and developing your Android apps for Blind Users (part 2). Retrieved March 24, 2024 from https://medium.com/@AlastairCraig86/designing-and-developing-your-android-apps-for-blind-users-part-2-6caae0d4a687
[6]
Daniela K. DiGiacomo and Kris D. Gutiérrez. 2016. Relational equity as a design tool within Making and Tinkering activities. Mind, Culture, and Activity 23, 2 (2016), 141–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10749039.2015.1058398
[7]
Perkins School for the Blind. 2021. Sonification Summary Page. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://www.perkinselearning.org/technology/blog/sonification-summary-page
[8]
Perkins School for the Blind. 2023. Announcing OctoStudio: A Block-Based Programming App. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://www.perkins.org/resource/announcing-octostudio-a-block-based-programming-app/
[9]
Mozilla Foundation. 2024. ARIA. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Accessibility/ARIA
[10]
American Printing House. [n. d.]. Code Jumper. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://codejumper.com/
[11]
American Printing House. 2024. CodeQuest (iPad App). Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://www.aph.org/product/code-quest-for-ipad-only
[12]
Lauren R. Milne and Richard E. Ladner. 2018. Blocks4All: Overcoming accessibility barriers to blocks programming for children with visual impairments. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 69, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173643
[13]
Michal Armoni, Orni Meerbaum-Salant, and Mordechai Ben-Ari. 2015. From Scratch to “Real” Programming. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. 14, 4, Article 25 (2015), 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/2677087
[14]
Mitchel Resnick and Eric Rosenbaum. 2013. Designing for tinkerability. In Design, make, play: Growing the next generation of STEM innovators, Margaret Honey and David E. Kanter (Eds.). Routledge, New York, NY, 163–181.
[15]
Mitchel Resnick, John Maloney, Andrés Monroy-Hernández, Natalie Rusk, Evelyn Eastmond, Karen Brennan, Amon Millner, Eric Rosenbaum, Jay Silver, Brian Silverman, et al.2009. Scratch: programming for all. Commun. ACM 52, 11 (2009), 60–67.
[16]
Natalie Rusk, Rupal Jain, and Caitlin K. Martin. 2023. Designing for belonging: Partnering with community-based educators to develop a new app for creative expression. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference of the Learning Sciences - ICLS 2023. International Society of the Learning Sciences, 2025–2026.
[17]
Stephanie Ludi and Mary Spencer. 2017. Design considerations to increase block-based language accessibility for blind programmers via Blockly. J. Vis. Lang. Sentient Syst. 3, 1 (2017). https://doi.org/10.18293/VLSS2017-013
[18]
W3C. 2008. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. Retrieved March 25, 2024 from https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)Honoring practices of community-based educators: lessons learned from the collaborative design of a creative mobile appLearning, Media and Technology10.1080/17439884.2024.243520249:5(794-810)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2024

Index Terms

  1. Designing for Tinkerability and Accessibility: Developing the OctoStudio mobile app to engage blind and visually impaired learners in creating with code

        Recommendations

        Comments

        Information & Contributors

        Information

        Published In

        cover image ACM Conferences
        IDC '24: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual ACM Interaction Design and Children Conference
        June 2024
        1049 pages
        ISBN:9798400704420
        DOI:10.1145/3628516
        Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must be honored. For all other uses, contact the Owner/Author.

        Sponsors

        Publisher

        Association for Computing Machinery

        New York, NY, United States

        Publication History

        Published: 17 June 2024

        Check for updates

        Author Tags

        1. Accessibility
        2. Blind and Visually Impaired Learners.
        3. Block-based programming
        4. Screen Reader
        5. Tinkering

        Qualifiers

        • Extended-abstract
        • Research
        • Refereed limited

        Funding Sources

        Conference

        IDC '24
        Sponsor:
        IDC '24: Interaction Design and Children
        June 17 - 20, 2024
        Delft, Netherlands

        Acceptance Rates

        Overall Acceptance Rate 172 of 578 submissions, 30%

        Upcoming Conference

        IDC '25
        Interaction Design and Children
        June 23 - 26, 2025
        Reykjavik , Iceland

        Contributors

        Other Metrics

        Bibliometrics & Citations

        Bibliometrics

        Article Metrics

        • Downloads (Last 12 months)106
        • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)5
        Reflects downloads up to 13 Feb 2025

        Other Metrics

        Citations

        Cited By

        View all
        • (2024)Honoring practices of community-based educators: lessons learned from the collaborative design of a creative mobile appLearning, Media and Technology10.1080/17439884.2024.243520249:5(794-810)Online publication date: 29-Nov-2024

        View Options

        Login options

        View options

        PDF

        View or Download as a PDF file.

        PDF

        eReader

        View online with eReader.

        eReader

        HTML Format

        View this article in HTML Format.

        HTML Format

        Figures

        Tables

        Media

        Share

        Share

        Share this Publication link

        Share on social media