Accessible Art

Art provides people with a form of communication that fosters creativity, curiosity, and critical thinking — it evokes emotions, inspires others, and empowers creators in a unique way. Our challenge was to develop an accessible, collaborative, affordable, and participatory project that expands access to opportunities for creating and experiencing art to people of all abilities. Over the course of six months, our team designed a micro-installation which features tactile and auditory elements, making art more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. Participants will create 2D wire art, use their creations to play music, and experience other tactile elements based on their interactions with the micro-installation. Although it took time to narrow down our idea, we focused on methods of making art as interactive as possible. We prototyped circuits, apps, and other mechanisms extensively, and we tested multiple times with people in our primary user group to garner important feedback. We were able to iterate upon our design using user feedback as well, adapting the project to be even more accessible to people who are blind or visually impaired. In June 2019, we hosted a micro-installation event at a local venue to demonstrate our project idea and collect more feedback from students at the University of Washington. Ultimately, our hope is to provide a new platform for accessible art to the community.

Award received: Voices Award for including the visions of users and partners.

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Check out our past Facebook Event Page and an article about us on GeekWire.

Final paper and final poster available upon request.