Primo
Making tactile learning more accessible and inclusive
Primo is an inclusive tactile-learning system that helps blind and low-vision students explore images and visual concepts through touch, while making tactile materials easier for teachers and guardians to create and share.
Visual-first learning materials can create significant barriers for blind and low-vision students. Primo brings tactile graphics, digital guidance, and community-based resource sharing into one system to make tactile learning easier to access and create.
Today’s classrooms are built around screens, but that environment is not equally accessible to every student. In particular, tactile graphic creation takes significant time and resources, which limits learning access for blind students.
- —Interviewed 17 people from blind and low-vision communities
- —Conducted research through five observations and two activities
- —Proposed a product concept connecting tactile learning with digital learning
How might we make learning more accessible and inclusive for all students?
Design for students across a spectrum of visual abilities and tactile sensitivities.
Reduce barriers to creating, accessing, and understanding tactile learning materials.
Connect digital tools with a physical tactile-learning experience.
Ground decisions in the real learning environments and needs of students and educators.
Make tactile exploration and creation engaging, approachable, and confidence-building.
Learning new concepts without visual aids is like solving a puzzle with missing pieces.
Many educational materials depend on images, diagrams, graphs, and other visual information. When those concepts are not translated into a tactile form, blind and low-vision students can be left without an equivalent way to explore and understand them.
Tactile graphics are a main learning assistive material for blind and low-vision individuals.
Tactile graphics communicate non-textual information through raised lines, surfaces, textures, and simplified forms. They give blind and low-vision learners a way to explore images, maps, graphs, diagrams, and spatial relationships through touch.
Empowering students and the people who support them
The research considered not only students, but also the teachers, guardians, and learning supporters who prepare and deliver tactile materials. The opportunity was to support greater student independence while making tactile resources easier for supporters to create, discover, and share.
Make tactile learning materials easier to find, create, and use.
Support active learning through touching, exploring, and creating.
Make tactile images easier to exchange between students, teachers, and guardians.
From needs to features and benefits
Primo was structured around two primary user groups. Sighted teachers and guardians can create tactile images in the app, explore community resources, and send materials to students. Blind and low-vision students can receive tactile images, explore them through Primo, create their own tactile images, and share them with others.
Streamline tactile-image creation · explore more resources · provide materials aligned with student needs
Instant access to tactile images · explore shapes and visuals · communicate visually · learn with greater confidence
The physical interface evolved through hands-on testing.
Because cell size and spacing directly affect tactile usability, the physical interface was tested through multiple prototypes. Early experiments printed different cell sizes to identify an appropriate scale for students. Primo 1.0 had cells and gaps that were too large, so feedback from Ming, an inclusive design advisor, informed the iteration to Primo 2.0. A cardboard prototype was then used to quickly test the revised form.
Printed different cell sizes to determine an appropriate tactile scale for students.
The cells and gaps were too large, prompting another usability iteration.
Inclusive-design feedback informed a revised form, tested quickly with cardboard.
Digital easy-to-follow guides
Digital easy-to-follow guides support beginners in creating tactile graphics, alongside tactile graphic braille alphabet cards tailored for students with visual impairments and learners developing tactile sensitivity for future braille literacy. The guides use detailed illustrations and thick outlines to make tactile-graphic principles easier to understand and apply.
Introduce the fundamentals and standards behind tactile graphics.
Connect learners to additional resources such as American Printing House and Perkins School for the Blind.
Break the creation process and design principles into approachable steps for first-time makers.
The final concept connects the Primo app with a tactile graphic board. Teachers and guardians can create and share tactile images, while students can receive, explore, create, and communicate through tactile graphics.
The concept reduces friction in creating tactile graphics and gives students a more accessible way to explore, create, and communicate visual ideas through touch.