QR code

This paper represents a reflection on the process of designing an inclusive and accessible user interface for people with visual impairments. As a multimedia designer, I am involved in an on- going site-specific digital literature project, known as Byderhand (At hand). In 2017, a school for learners with visual barriers in the Western Cape Province of South Africa approached me and my project co-managers about the possibility of incorporating digital literature as part of a multi- sensory garden project at the school. This specific context implied that we had to reconsider the interface design of existing phases of our project. Interfaces for mobile screens are generally based on visual communication. Information is simplified and represented in the form of graphical icons, to improve navigation. However, such an approach fails when a user is unable to see what is displayed on screen. It is therefore imperative for designers to gain an understanding of blind and visually impaired users’ needs and requirements regarding their interaction with mobile technology.

The development of this project required collaboration with various people who are visually impaired and/or provide a service to people with visual impairment. Such a participatory approach proved to be especially relevant during the user research and evaluation phases of the interface designing process. The latter included experimentation with both braille signification and digital interface usage. We had to overcome two main obstacles to ensure the practicality of the Byderhand platform in this regard. The first was to enable users with visual impairments to gain access to the digital interface via QR codes. This required a unique solution, as the scanning of QR codes mainly relies on the user’s visual capabilities. The second goal was to design an inclusive navigational interface, in order to enable users with different visual capabilities to experience the texts published multi-modally on the platform.

The development period, which lasted twelve months, entailed extensive user research, prototyping, evaluation and improvement of the physical and digital interfaces. The multi- sensory garden was unveiled on 30 August 2018. Learners can now interact and experience themulti-modally mediated, site-specific digital literature on their school grounds. Extended facets of the project were made available to the general public, namely in the local coffee shop at the Innovation for the Blind Centre and in the Karoo Desert National Botanical Garden as part of a Braille Trail development. The most recent Byderhand project phase was well received and is also used as an educative tool to stimulate learners at the said school, exposing them to new experiences of literary presentation. With more exploration, the design solutions developed in this project phase could offer new possibilities of literature publication for people with visual impairments in accessible spaces.

J.R. Carpenter describes creating and distributing The Broadside of a Yarn, a hybrid print-digital art-literature project commissioned by Electronic Literature as a Model for Creativity and Innovation in Practice (ELMCIP) for Remediating the Social, an exhibition which took place at Inspace, Edinburgh, UK, 1-17 November 2012.

"The Broadside of a Yarn: A Situationist Strategy for Spinning Sea Stories Ashore", by J. R. Carpenter, reflects upon The Broadside of a Yarn, a multi-modal performative pervasive networked narrative attempt to chart fictional fragments of new and long-ago stories of near and far-away seas with nought but a QR code reader and a hand-made print map of dubious accuracy. The Broadside of a Yarn was commissioned by ELMCIP for Remediating the Social, an exhibition which took place at Inspace, Edinburgh, 1-17 November 2012. The Broadside of a Yarn remediates the broadside, a form of networked narrative popular from 16th century onward. Like the broadside ballads of old, the public posting of The Broadside of a Yarn signified that it was intended to be performed. Embedded within the cartographic space of this printed map are QR codes which link to web pages containing computer-generated narrative dialogues, performance scripts replete with stage instructions suggesting how and where these texts are intended to be read aloud. As such, these points on the physical map point to potential events, to utterances, to speech acts. The stated intention in creating this work was to use the oral story-telling tradition of the sailor’s yarn, the printed broadside and map, the digital network, and the walk-able city in concert to construct a temporary digital community connected through a performative pervasive networked narrative. Through the process of composition the focus shifted away from the temptation to lure people on walks through a city tagged with links to stories of the sea, toward a desire to compel people to collectively speak shifting sea stories ashore. This paper reflects critically upon this shift, toward an articulation of The Broadside of a Yarn as an collective assemblage of enunciation.