Touch tech: new guidelines helping teachers 3D print for blind students

The guidelines, free to download, provide information specifically attuned to the needs of blind and low vision users including inclusive design considerations, directions to create braille or audio labels and accessible resources for blind makers.  

The information can be used by teachers, parents, orientation and mobility specialists and occupational therapists to create educational materials like braille learning aids, maps, curriculum-based models such as historic artefacts, landforms or anatomy, maths manipulatives, educational games and adaptive tools for the classroom.

The guidelines were developed in close collaboration with not-for-profit organisation Round Table, and in consultation with people who are blind and have low vision.

Project lead and inclusive technologies researcher Leona Holloway, from Monash’s Faculty of Information Technology, said the guidelines were created specifically to support people who have ‘print disabilities’, ie. for those who are blind or have low vision, those with physical disabilities limiting their ability to interact with 2D materials, and people who are unable to follow a line of print or have a disability that impacts their concentration.

“One of the advantages of 3D printed models over raised line drawings, is that they can be used by blind, low vision and sighted students together in educational settings, and they can also be useful for people who are not trained in ‘touch reading’,” Holloway says.

“However, not all models can be understood well through both vision and touch. Instead, as described in the guidelines, thoughtful design, printing and finishing techniques are required to ensure that 3D printed models are optimised for touch reading and inclusion.”

In May this year, the guidelines were launched as a standard by the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disability, the standards-setting organisation for accessible formats production.

Sonali Marathe, Round Table president and manager of accessibility and inclusion at not-for-profit organisation NextSense, which  supports people who are deaf or hard of hearing, blind or have low vision, says keeping pace with emerging technologies to explore new accessibility options opened numerous new unexplored avenues for learning and teaching for students living with disability.

“The 3D printed models can help students who are blind get spatial and dimensional understanding of things that they may have never experienced before, for example, for the first time ever students are learning different architectural concepts through 3D printed models of the Burj Khalifa, Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty,” Marathe says.

“In addition to educational materials they also have an opportunity to be included in games through objects such as tactile dice and noughts and crosses.”

“Though there is a lot of information available about 3D printing generally, the accessibility-specific information in these guidelines about how to design and use 3D prints for the blind and low vision community has never been available before. We hope these standards are shared and adopted by as many organisations and people across the world as possible.”

Sarah Hayman is a teacher and producer from the Victorian Department of Education’s Statewide Vision Resource Centre, and says 3D printed tools are starting to be seen as a must-have, adding to the broader wheelhouse of options for kids to access.

“Models printed with the help of this information are not only helping blind students to access the curriculum but they are also helping the students to be included in mainstream classrooms,” Hayman says.

“The guidelines have been helpful to design my own tools and also to direct other people to consider accessibility when they are 3D printing teaching materials.”

Adrian Riessen is an Orientation and Mobility Teacher at the South Australian School and Services for Vision Impaired (SASSVI) and he is also the founder of a 3D printing club for students at SASSVI.

He says for students that struggle with mapping concepts, exploring something in 3D seems to take on more meaning.

“They can feel that it’s a building with a door and a window. It’s not just a square on a white sheet of paper,” Riessen says.

“These guidelines and the research project have increased the visibility of 3D printable options for use within the classroom. It has opened up more conversations within the school, Statewide Support Service, and with other providers that we work with about the potential benefits of 3D printed resources.”

The networking and sharing of ideas and projects because of this research, Riessen says, has been invaluable to developing his knowledge of 3D design and understanding possibilities for the continual improvement of access and inclusion to areas of the curriculum that are historically challenging to teach.

The new guidelines are the result of an Australian Research Council Linkage Project led by Monash University in partnership with Round Table, Department of Education Victoria, Guide Dogs Victoria, NextSense and SeeDifferently.

To access the full guidelines, click here.