Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統 by Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin

Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統 by Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin is a highly esteemed winner of the very prestigious 2026 A' Design Award 銅獎 in 教育設計 Competition Category.

銅教育· 2026

Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統

by Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin

Client: Nuoran Chen

A' Design Award 銅獎 Winner in 教育 Category

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Verified Award Winner

Verify Award Status for #177478

View at A' Design Award Press Release Award Badge

Colors

The Design

About Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統

Tactilelink係一套專為失明及視障學生而設嘅觸感圖形教育系統。傳統嘅手把手教學方式限制咗學生嘅獨立性，而且依賴為數稀少嘅專科教師。Tactilelink結合咗3D打印平板電腦框架、電路圖凸線圖形以及跨平台軟件。聲音化技術會引導每位學生搵到目標元件，聲音嘅音高同強度會隨住手指嘅距離而變化。導師可以同時跟進多位學生，仲可以準備語音註解俾學生喺課後獨立溫習。

The Recognition

About the A' Design Award 銅獎

Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統是 A' Design Award 銅獎得主，這是授予以創造力、獨創性和敏銳見長的傑出設計的極具聲望的認可。銅獎得主是技藝嫻熟、創意驚人的作品，印證了其設計師豐富的經驗、想像力與機智。預計Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統將成為一件備受推崇、令人欽佩且被珍愛的物品，兼具顯著的專業性與創新性。這件贏得 A' Design Award 銅獎的設計融入藝術、科學、設計和技術領域的最佳實踐，並因注重細節而出類拔萃。Tactilelink 觸感圖形教育系統出色地滿足需求，觸動渴望，迷住情感，並吸引好奇心。

Behind the Design

Press Kit

Credits, team members and technical details provided by the designer.

Unique Properties: Tactilelink is an affordable tactile graphic education system for blind and visually impaired students. Traditional hand-over-hand instruction limits students' independence and strains an already scarce specialist workforce. SoundPath lets a single instructor guide multiple students at once through sonification and voiceover annotations, making tactile graphic learning accessible, scalable, and independent.
Dimensions & Packaging: The physical components include a 3D-printed tablet frame (290 × 226 × 7 mm) and several tactile graphics of Arduino diagrams (279.4 × 215.9 mm). The digital component is cross-platform software that works as both a tablet app and a desktop web app, creating a flexible teaching system.
Tags: Accessibility, Tactile graphic, Education system, Inclusive education, Blind Arduino
Production Technology: Tactilelink is built with simplicity, affordability, and accessibility in mind. For student’s system, it combines 3D-printed tablet frames with software optimized for common educational tablets, ensuring easy setup and scalability. It uses sonification to guide students in exploring and learning raised-line graphics. For instructor’s system, it’s an one-step, AI empowered software help they instruct multiple students easily, reducing their workload, expanding the educational capacity to more underserved blind students.
Design Challenge: The hardest part was shifting from designer to facilitator. Co-design challenged us to suspend our assumptions, especially as sighted designers. We wrongly assumed blind users would prefer vibration cues over sound. In reality, sonification was less fatiguing and more effective. This required overcoming internal bias, embracing user knowledge, and adapting to insights often overlooked due to our own perspective.
Research: This research is user-centered design. Our goal was to create an affordable system for teaching tactile graphics to visually impaired students. We observed Blind Arduino sessions and collaborated with the East Bay Center for the Blind, then used co-design workshops, Wizard of Oz prototyping, and usability testing with teachers and students. Results showed sonification on existing hardware best supported group learning, offering insights that impact education, accessibility, and inclusive design.
Inspiration: The idea came from observing an Arduino class at the East Bay Center for the Blind, where one instructor had to physically guide each student's hands through circuit diagrams one by one. With nearly 5,000 specialist teachers short across the U.S., this one-on-one model is unsustainable. Inspired by sonification, we use continuous pitch changes to guide students to target components independently, enabling one teacher to instruct multiple students simultaneously, in person or remotely.
Project Duration: This project started in August 2024 and finished in December 2024.
Operation Flow: During class, the instructor taps a selected component on the tactile graphic for students to explore. Students navigate to the component following sonification guidance: the pitch and intensity of the sound shift based on how close their finger is to the target. Teacher can observes their progress on their interface to provide real-time support. After class, teachers could use the software to create detailed audio annotation and design the component-learning sequence, publishing it to student’s device. Students could review the knowledge independently without teacher’s presence by following the sonification guidance.
Team Members: Nuoran Chen
Yilin Niu
Siming (Susie) Jin