shiro_lavnik

Team SHIRO from NID, Ahmedabad for the design inspire #designathon 2022

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Final Concept Video

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Link to our youtube video :

Thanks for this opportunity! It was really fun.

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Here's a link to our blog page on our final concept and all it entails. You can also click on our sidebar page with the title OUR CONCEPT to view the same.

We had a lot of fun during this hackathon and we're dead tired, but proud of the work we did.

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DESIGN BRIEF - Empowering visually-impaired children through STEM education by focusing on a subject that could open up more career possibilities for them

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Here is the link of the working Figma prototype of our coding app "Matrix" -

Figma

Created with Figma

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A glimpse of how our app is going to look like...was fun designing it

Shooting the video now..

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We want to focus specifically on a subject that could open up more career possibilities for the visually-impaired. After deliberating various topics as discussed in our previous posts, we landed on the subject of coding.

While coding can be learned by the blind, there are more than few areas where the experience of learning and using any coding language can be improved for them.

As screen reading software such as JAWS and NVDA only read entire lines of text when you switch rows, spotting errors in the code is an even harder challenge for them than it is for us. `

Moving through long lines of code may not seem like a major challenge for sighted people, but it makes coding a much harder job for those who are visually impaired. While we can look at the code as blocks of text, the screen reader will read whatever there is on the next line without any breaks to signify any changes. This makes going through the code a much harder task for VI students than for sighted ones.

We are now making rough ideas for an interaction-based solution to ease their way into the coding world.

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Mapping out the current education system for the visually impaired. Please zoom in to view the text.

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Uff finally, it was a long road to reach here but the problem statement has been finalized!

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Mansi just got off her call with her old friend Manjot and we were all very impressed with the achievements of this guy.

"It was nice reconnecting with him after such a long time", said Mansi, with tears rolling down her cheeks.

Even though he completely lost his vision in 4th class, he never lost hope, in fact, he is one of the most inspiring souls ever - literally a prodigy. He has already done so much at 21 yrs of age, which most people can only dream of. He is currently doing a double major in Computer Science and Economics and a minor in Psychology at the University of Columbia, Canada. His hobbies include cooking, playing guitar, gaming and coding.

He provided us very useful insights which helped us finalize our problem statement. To give a slight gist, he had to fight CBSE to pursue PCM in 11-12th. CBSE encourages the visually impaired to take simpler Maths in 9th itself, really dimming their potential.

For diagrams, he used to explain what the diagram should look like instead of drawing it. Playing video games also helped him visualize the diagrams much better. He needed someone to describe the diagrams for him. Some diagrams like graphs were hard to describe – instead, used gears to drag along a page to create a graph that he could feel by touch instead of just verbal description. He managed chemistry practical examinations by smelling instead of seeing – even though it is quite dangerous for the student to do so. This shows how the curriculum isn't even modified slightly for inclusive education.

Since C++ is allowed only with Science, the Indian academic curriculum doesn't even allow them to pursue coding - a huge future career prospect.

Laws do not keep the visually impaired in the mainstream themselves. Private colleges are not bound by Indian law to accommodate differently abled students. Even public colleges like IIT do not accommodate differently-abled students on time – ramps being made 5 years later, etc.

STEM education is highly discouraged for the visually-impaired in India and something must be immediately done to bring them at par with the mainstream society.

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DISCLAIMER: The condition of the people in this video is really critical. Watch at your own risk. And give us some money, please.

You can GPay me at 9773601426

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We are done with the research at the Blind People’s Association (BPA) in Ahmedabad and our minds have been blown away.

Started off talking to the principal of Minnie Cama Secondary School for the Blind, Manubhai. He was very helpful in letting us know what kind of information is provided to the school’s students and how they go about teaching.

One thing that stood out to us was that visually impaired children weren’t allowed to pursue Science Education in 11th and 12th. This was really shocking seeing that the students of the same school represented India in the Paralympics. ( Sadly, we couldn't meet any of the superstars)

Also had the opportunity to talk to the school’s students, some of whom said that they had not been able to pursue the science stream in 11th and 12th despite trying to switch schools and were denied so because of ‘lack of infrastructure’.

The next person we interviewed was Medhaben, who works as a member of the IT cell of BPA. Blind people use computers with the help of screen readers like NVDA and JAWS, which reads aloud the text on the screen. Computer education was also a part of the classes offered at the school. It seemed like an exciting subject to explore next.

Witnessed the excel class in session and how the screen reader responds to multiple inputs on screen, which felt pretty confusing to a sighted person without experience using this system. One thing, however, that even blind children had a lot of trouble with was when the software reads out the entire line without stopping, which makes comprehending information very difficult. This problem was even more apparent when these children were taught coding, as finding errors and making edits requires constant referring back to the old text. Discussing this subject prompted Mansi to remember her friend Manjot, who is blind and studied in her old school as a Physics, Chemistry, and Math (PCM) student. We wondered how he learned this subject while others were denied admission and how we could help to let blind students easily study whatever they want to while opening up career opportunities for them in the future. We’ve set up a call with Manjot in the evening since he is a student in Canada now - we hope the insights from the discussion give us a clearer vision of the pinpointed problems as we now have a general overview of what area we want to work within. In the meantime, we are focussing on secondary research and trying to come up with solutions.

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Lavnik found his research at the Blind People's Association (BPA) in Ahmedabad quite insightful, and he feels this could be an excellent domain to work upon. So we both are heading there with some lunch( for our hungry friend) for more extensive research.

A few pics he sent us - lots of tactile interaction and how chess has been modified for the visually-impaired.

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Mansi is back from her talk with Mrs. Shakuntla. She is a 90 yrs old woman who worked as a nurse until 70 yrs of age. Having worked her entire life and feeling pretty lonely in her old age, she is always trying to keep herself busy by cleaning the room or the fans overhead. She is very independent and likes to do things on her own without any complaints.

While this was a fun visit, it didn't turn out to be that useful because Ms. Shakuntala is kind of content with her life. One major insight was that loneliness among the elderly is a major problem but we couldn't find many sources to talk to. The old age home was also closed to visitors today.

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Introducing "Muncho", Shiro's cousin - an embodiment of our personality traits combined:-

Mansi - Sweet Lavnik - Foodie Yatin - Clumsy

He is a cute-looking character that seems very playful and friendly. He is always ready to help everyone with cute eyes. At the same time, he loves eating ice cream while sitting on a couch. But the desire to help others and the habitual laziness result in him being clumsy, like slipping on a banana peel.

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Based on the approachable stakeholders, we have finalized 2 domains for now - Visual impairment and the elderly...

Mansi is heading out to talk to a faculty's old relative while Lavnik is going to the Blind People's Association, 10 mins away from our college in Ahmedabad.

Leaving Yatin alone to work on the mini-challenge.

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@yatin working on our character for our Mini Challenge having a MAJOR IDENTITY CRISIS!!