BYOAD: Tactile Interpretation Exhibit: Weekly Updates

Project Overview       

week 10 – Final Update

Summary:

This week, I tested out a finishing technique Chris M. (Intrepid) suggested.  I used cotton muslin soaked in wood glue to encapsulate the cardboard graphic.  I used

Process documentation can be found on my blog here. 

Reflection:

This process was fairly simple to do. I think I needed less water in the mix and possibly a textile with a tighter weave. I would need to experiment with both to determine the best options.

Even though I ironed the muslin (thin cotton canvas) before soaking, the fabric ended up with creases and bumps. These extra textures ad information that could be confusing or, at the least, tells an unintended story about the original artifact.

The piece does feel durable and could be protected more with a layer of polyurethane. This could also smooth out the texture issues mentioned earlier.

If I were to use this method again, I would:

• use less water in the mixture
• use a thick canvas
• try letting the canvas sit longer in the glue before applying
• allow the canvas to flow over the edges instead of pushing it into the creases. (the fabric, with the glue, has more structure than I thought which is a feature I can play more with)

week 9 (due 4/29/21) (feedback form)

Summary:

This week I met with Veronica Alfaro, ITP and Ability Project resident, to discuss their work with Adaptive Design Association.  Per their website, “Adaptive Design Association advances healthcare, education, and social well-being by engaging everyone—novice to expert—in building custom adaptations, discovering untapped potential, and nurturing communities that thrive with diversity.”  In all of Adaptive Design’s adaptations, they use cardboard as their primary material.  I was interested in learning how they finish the edges of their pieces in order to add durability to those that I am creating.  I was fortunate enough to have Adam El-Sawaf, Adaptive Design & Fabricator, available to hop on the call with Veronica and I to discuss their work. 

This week, I was inspired by a conversation with Chris M. from the Intrepid to test out a low-tech version of the topographical version of Washington.  I chose to use only a printer/copier, Google Docs, cardboard, markers, box cutter, glue and a cutting mat to create this version.  You can find the full documentation here. 

Next I am testing out finishing the edges with wood putty, as advice by Adam from Adaptive Design Association. 

Next Steps:

• Compile resources and information from fabricating these touch objects into a resource guide. 
• Finish putty version of graphic to test out edge finishing.
• Final presentation.

week 8 (due 4/22/21) (feedback form)

Summary:

Using the exaggerated imaged created last week, I played with removing layers in order to present on the necessary information. 

Also, I experimented with sealing the edges with hot glue.  This also helped to smooth out the edges between layers.  The glue does, however, add a different texture as it is not very easy to obtain a consistent thickness when both filling the gaps in the edges of the cardboard and using it to smooth out the area between the layers.  

tools and Materials:

• Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop
• Small hot glue gun with glue
• 3Doodler
• Cardboard

Audio:

For this and last week’s exaggerated interpretation, it must be noted that it is not a replica but an exaggeration when preseting these items to visitors.  This could be done by the staff or via an audio description. 

Feedback:

Continuing from last week, I would like to know what would be most beneficial for sites? 

Next Step:

• Low vision Exploration (Backlit, projection, etc)
• Begin building out resource for museums that features the tools used to create these graphics as well as additional options for various budgets and staffing constraints. 

week 7 (due 4/15/21) (feedback form)

Summary:

This week I spent time exploring exaggeration.  Using the 2.5D graphic I created last week, I created 2 additional versions that aim to exaggerate the jowls of Washington.  Currently, I have both exaggerated version cut in cardboard but have chosen to use one of the versions in my next exploration.  I plan to look at ways of eliminating layers/excess information.  I will start by using hot glue to simply the information so that the jowls are the focus of the graphic.  You can find more information on from this week’s exploration here. 

I also presented both the original and the elongated exaggerated versions to Amy for feedback.  We discussed what information is obtainable through presenting these artifacts to sighted users for feedback.  Due to COVID, access to testers is limited to a small pool of people.  Amy noted that there is still valuable information that can be gathered by having others interact with the items.  To start, it will show just how durable the item is.  As the maker, I am accustomed with how to hold the item but others are not.  Understanding that user testing with sighted participants in no way supplements actual feedback from BLV participants and experts.  It does, however, offer a chance to receive initial information that will allow for the item to be in a more presentable stage when we are able to test with User Experts. 

CO-DESIGN READING UPDATE:

Design Kit Co-Creation Session by IDEO.org

This site offers 4 steps for hosting a co-creation session. The steps are as follows:

1. Identify who is to be in the co-creation session. Consider including past participants or those with whom have been involved with the project in other ways.
2. Arrange the space and all necessary supplies then send invite to participants.
3. Include various activities from conversation starters to rapid prototyping.
4. Capture feedback throughout the process. Include the participants as co-designers not just interviewees.

If I were to host a co-creation session (co-design) for the work I am doing in this class, I would include the following:

• BLV User Experts
• Access and accessibility experts
• Museum Accessibility staff

I would consider having fellow classmates involved in the session as well but my primary aim would be to invite people who are BLV to lead the creation of the tools that will most help them in experiencing the items.

IDEO also offers additional suggestions on how to get started with conversation starters, a brainstorm, role plays, and rapid programming.

I would like to also share an article that I found to be valuable in how I look at the work that I am doing both in and outside this class.  Omayeli Arenyeka’s article, How to think differently about doing good as a creative person, discusses the concept of creative savior complex (CSC).  CSC is an attitude where the designer priorities themself and their tools over the actual good being done.  The question posed by Arenyeka that spoke most to me was, What are your objectives – really? 

feedback:

For this week, I would like to know how the work I am creating can help your team.  I am creating tactile versions of one item and documenting the process of exploration.  How can this work better support your goals as a museum?  Do you need a different type of documentation in order to replicate the process? 

I received lots of valuable feedback from the midterm!  Thank you! 

next steps:

Continued exploration and process documentation:

• 2.5D Textural Exploration (hot glue, puff paints, etc.)
• Low vision Exploration (Backlit, projection, etc)

week 6 (due 4/7/21)

Goals Summary:

For the rest of the semester, I will be focusing on creating multiple interpretations of Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of an aging George Washington (Macculloch Hall).  To date, I have a version of a 2.5D graphic created in Adobe Illustrator.  The next step is be to cut and assemble the graphic then followup with critique of the piece.  After review and adjustments, I will be exploring how to create this graphic on the CNC machine.  Additional process documentation located here.   

My secondary goal is to research co-design facilitation, and discuss other’s experiences with co-designing a product or experience.  The final deliverable will be some form of guideline and hopefully a test run with participants. 

Next Steps:

• Cut and assemble first iteration of 2.5D tactile graphic for Peale Portrait followed by input from stakeholders.
• Design and build graphic for CNC router starting with software then test cut.
• Continued research into co-design facilitation and guidelines. 

Questions :

• Museums and Historical Sites:
  • What item(s) would you like to have interpreted as a tactile experience?
  • What COVID restrictions/guidelines has your institution put into place?  Are there specific guidelines regarding touch items?
• What advice do you have pertaining to the facilitation of co-design workshops?

Update:

Below is the first iteration of the 2.5D tactile graphic made using cardboard and Illustrator.  Additional process documentation of the following 2.5D graphic can be found here.   Sketch Exploration can be found here. 

week 4 (due 3/24/21) (feedback form)

Summary:

Lauren and I met with Tricia (Macculloch Hall) to discuss the items they would like to have interpreted and/or available for a touch tour.  We started with a discussion of the interpretation goals for each item.  Items and interpretation goals listed below:

• An artist’s proof of Thomas Nast’s Santa Claus that we will have turned into a topographical touch drawing.
  • Tactile Interpretation goal: Tell the story of how Nast took a series of lines and put them together to create a cohesive image. 
  • The Nast portrait is important to the museum for several reasons:
    • Nast grew up across the street from Macculloch Hall along with the founder of the museum
    • Many of Nast’s drawings were done in his family home, across the street
    • Nast was working artist during Reconstruction which is extremely relevant to our current time
  • Additional Considerations:
    • Producing the topographical drawing on similar paper would allow for the presentation of a material sample as well as be an item the visitor could take home.  This would be one solution to concerns around COVID. 
• Charles Willson Peale’s painted portrait of George Washington that will be turned into a topographical touch painting.
  • Tactile Interpretation goal: Peale’s painting features an older, softer George Washington.  This is in contrast to how he is most prominently featured.  The goal of the tactile interpretation(s) will be to show how Peale’s painting humanizes George Washington.
• The Drawing Room mantle, that we will allow visitors to explore by touch.
  • Tactile Interpretation goal: The goal would be to show the craft of the local artist who produced this and other panels/moldings on the building.  Specifically, the work detail is called gauge work.  We would also want to feature the use of the item.  Highlighting the areas where the material has been worn down from use.
  • In lieu of recreating the mantle, there was discussion of adding a protective layer to the mantle that would protect it while also not harming the mantle with any adhesives. 
• Sections of the steel cable and rail from the Morris Canal that will be mounted for visitors to explore by touch.
  • Tactile Interpretation goal: The goal is to allow the visitor to feel the weight as well as the construction of the cable and its durability.  Being created from smaller cables, it is important to show the how smaller threads come together to create one larger, durable cable. 
  • Note: the cable has sharp ends and will need to be covered as to prevent harm.

Tricia noted that it is important that we consider how visitors will interact with items with COVID restrictions.  Most likely, we will need to make sure that the items can be understood while the visitor is wearing nitrile gloves. 

After discussing the scope of the overall project while also considering the limited time left in the semester, Lauren and I decided that this groups focus will be on the following:

1. sketch exploration of 1 object from Macculloch Hall demonstrating various tactile interpretations
2. fabrication of 3 to 4 interpretations of that object
3. sketch exploration of additional items for additional partner institutions

We found the George Washington portrait to be most compelling as it presented him in a way that we had never considered. 

As noted in item #3, I would like to start exploring different tactile interpretations of at least one item from each of the institutions involved in this project.  Once we have a list of items along with the institutions’ interpretation goals for that item, I would like to host a few ideation sessions where fellow classmates as well as working group participants can contribute to the sketch exploration.  Depending on the number of participants, each session would focus on one to two items.  Ideally, at least one User Expert would be available to participate in order to offer their insight at the beginning of the design stage.  As this would be a new endeavor for myself, input and suggestions from those who have held similar co-design sessions would be greatly appreciated (see feedback form to contribute). 

Research:

This week I read Defining Problems of Practice to Advance Inclusive Tactile Media Consumption and Production by Abigale Stangl, Ann Cunningham, Lou Ann Blake and Tom Yeh.  This article identified 4 Problems of Practice (POP) and 34 underlying issues that impact the tactile media consumption and production practices of BLV as well as other stakeholders.  The authors came to these conclusions after holding three Tactile Arts and Graphic Symposia during ASSETS’ ’19 in Pittsburgh PA. 

To begin with, the authors use a definition of Problems of Practice (POP) from Jill Alexa Perry’s The EdD and the Scholarly Practitioner (2016).  Perry states that POPs are “persistent, contextualized, and specific issue embedded in the work of a practitioner, the addressing of which has the potential to result in improved understanding, experience, and outcome.”  Abigale Stangle and their fellow authors identified the following POPs as well as their recommendations based on those POPs:

1. Conspicuousness Impacting Belonging
   1. People who are BLV must be involved in every stage of the design processes and be “empowered to choose and mediate for themselves how they are positioned to consume and produce tactile media.”
2. Stigma of Touch
   1. The team advocates for the “design of multimodal socio-technical systems and environments that situate tactile media as a fundamental mode of representation.”
3. Inadequate Educational Programming, and Supply and Dissemination of Tactile Media
   1. Advocate for the creation of systems that support one’s development of tactile interpretation of media as well as positioning BLV people as the creators of their own media.
4. Instability of Tactile Media Design Research
   1. Advocate for the evaluation of standards and continued research into ways or standards are employed in design across media. 

During one of the exercises, the participants were asked to explore items in an exhibition and to answer 3 questions which could be very useful to ask when designing and testing out our own tactile objects/experiences.  Those questions are:

1. What can you feel (through the sense of touch)?
2. What would it mean if something was different?
3. What was the artist’s intent?

The authors also identified a series of questions posed by the TAGS participants that would be an intriguing area to research.  Those questions are:

• Should tactile illustrations and pictures be considered graphics or art? 
• If art is tactile, is it only meant for a person who is BLV?
• If a person who is blind creates art does it have to be characterized as tactile?
• Can art be used to convey STEM concepts? 

In addition to the above questions, the authors identified two areas where additional research would be beneficial to the work of the researchers and the BLV community:

1. Research into the “strategies people who are BLV develop when positioned to create with traditional craft materials and accessible design interfaces, as well as how they adopt such technologies…”
2. Research into “the circumstances where established tactile media guidelines satisfy or leave tactile media consumers and producers wanting, as well as the types of resources that support one’s ability to engage in metarepresentation and multimodal composition.” 

Questions:

Museums and Historical Sites: What one item would you like us to explore through a sketch exploration (co-design session)?  Please also think about your interpretation goal for the tactile item.  What do you want the visitor to understand or learn through touching this item?

Next Steps:

1. Sketch exploration of Peale’s portrait of George Washington
2. Gather list of items from institutions with interpretation goals
   1. What does the institution want the visitor to learn from the tactile experience? 
3. Confirm interest/participants for ideation session(s)
4. Schedule sessions
   1. Explore how best to hold these sessions

week 3 (due 3/18/21) (feedback form)

Summary:

This week, we focused attention on a sketch exploration of tactile interpretations for Louisiana State Museum’s stove artifact.  As part of the process, a template was created for the interpretation initial design stage.  The template can be found here.  Please note that it is a work in process and will change as we refine the overall process. 

In the initial explorations, we defined the sketch interpretation (template item) that informed how the stove was going to be interpreted as a tactile item.  After meeting with Lauren, this item has been identified as one that must first come from the museum itself.  Once the museum identifies what part of the item that would like to have communicated through a tactile interpretation, the design team can then focus on achieving that goal. 

For this exploration, we referred to the Things Behind Glass group’s Spring 2020 blog and final presentation.  Below are 2 of the sketches that came out of this exploration.  For more information on these as well as other interpretations, please checkout the repository here. 

Pineapple Detail Interpretation: 2.5D Tactile Graphic / Vacuform
Designer: Daniel Ryan Johnston

Interpreting the pineapple in Vacuformed plastic will allow for this to be a lightweight item and for the detail to be felt.   I went with this interpretation using myself as a case study.  As someone with arthritis in my hands which causes pain, numbness, weakness and dexterity issues, I wanted to explore zooming-in to a detail so that I could really feel the craft within the design.  I would be interested to learn if this would be effective/useful for others with similar hand challenges. 

The raised lines between the images aim to communicate the zooming-in effect.  The version on the left will be the actual size while the one on the right will be 3x bigger.  I imagine that this could be understood without the help of a guide but I would like to test if this kind of tactile zooming identifier is effective.  This same effect could be replicated to any of the other design details of the stove. 

Stove Miniature: Handmade Interpretation
Designer: Liz Betts

This interpretation aims to show the overall design and shape of the stove while communicating through the use of a heating element (set on the lowest setting as not to harm) where the main fire of the stove would be.  This design would incorporate the recordings from Spring 2020’s Things Behind Glass.

Next Steps:

1. Continue exploration of stove artifact (addition of ITP-esque interpretation).  
   1. Confirm design museum interpretation goals of stove.
2. Scheduled – meeting next week with Lauren R. (Ability Project) and Tricia P. (Macculloch Hall) to discuss touch objects.
3. Continue Tactile Research:
   1. Defining Problems of Practice to Advance Inclusive Tactile Media Consumption and Production by Abigale Stangl, Ann Cunningham, Lou Ann Blake and Tom Yeh

Week 2 (Due 3/11/21) (FEEDBACK FORM)

Summary:

This week, I attended the kick-off meeting with project stakeholders from the Ability Project (Lauren and Amy) and staff from the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum.  In preparation for the meeting, I read three papers pertaining to tactile objects (see below for additional information regarding the papers).  From the meeting, I was tasked with compiling a list of equipment available for use at ITP (see below for list).  Also, I met with Lauren on Wednesday to discuss the creation of a sketch exploration of different tactile interpretations of Louisiana State Museum’s stove artifact.  We will present our sketch exploration to Amy on Tuesday, March 16th. 

Sketch Exploration:
A sketch exploration of different tactile interpretations of the stove

1. Try to think of at least 7 different ways we could interpret the stove and sketch them out. Some ideas:
   1. 2.5D tactile graphic
   2. Topographic tactile graphic
   3. 3D printed miniature replica
   4. Hand-crafted interpretation
   5. Purchased model
   6. Material samples (e.g., a kettle or tool that works with the stove or a heavy piece of iron to communicate what the stove is made out of)
   7. Then, go wild! What are other tactile interpretations that other museums have missed? What would the ITP version of a tactile interpretation be?

Stove Resources:

• Documentation of the stove from last year’s class.  
• Stove measurements from Louisiana State staff
  1. Photo with measurements
  2. Word Doc with measurements

NYU ITP Shop Equipment:

• Ultimaker 01 3D printer
• Laser Cutters (60 and 80 Watt Epilog)
• OtherMill (5.5in X 4.5in) micro-milling machine
• Various sewing machines 
• Singer Futura XL-400 embroidery machine 
• Silhouette Cameo 4 vinyl cutter
• Various hand tools
• Leather working tools
• Wooden lathe
• Belt sanders
• Power Saw (miter, band)
• Drill press
• CNC (wood)
• Router

Research:

This week, I read the following papers in preparation for the kick-off meeting:

1. Making Sense of Art: Access for Gallery Visitors with Vision Impairments by Loena Holloway, Matthew Butler, Kim Marriott and Alan Borning
2. Cheryl Fogle-Hatch’s publication on multimodal touch objects
3. An in-process paper discussing tactile object guidelines. 

I also attended the virtual event, Museum Prototype Testing and Co-Design in Times of Covid hosted by the Institute for Human Centered Design (recording to be posted here).  The discussion covered an array of topics surrounding user testing before and after COVID that provided valuable insight into the co-design and user testing of tactile experiences.  The following points really stood out:

• Even though there are many benefits to virtual user testing (cost savings, expanded user expert pool, faster turnaround of testing, ease of creating a supportive environment for testers), it presents additional challenges for testing tactile objects and experiences.  User expert Katie recommended providing in depth verbal descriptions of the tactile. 
• A virtual setup does allow for increased involvement in the early stages of the design process as well as throughout the entire process.  A large pool of user experts are able to participate in the design discussions as they are just a click away.  As noted above, there will need to be additional considerations made once a physical object is created in order to get the full range of feedback. 
• When considering objects for tactile projects, ask user experts which types of experiences would be most valuable.  Do consider objects that are not available in everyday life.  Also, consider cultural symbols that patrons from other cultures might not be familiar with. 
• As the designer, be sure to consider the learning goal of the object and keep that in mind throughout the process.  Also, keep the experience simple, but not juvenile. 
• Lastly, user expert Katie noted that an interactive experience does not always mean that it is also a tactile one. 

Questions:

• Will there be an opportunity to include User Experts throughout the process of creating these tactile experiences?  If so, at what stage would be most beneficial to the project?
• What additional items would be  good fit for this exhibition?

Next Steps:

• Create at least 7 sketches for tactile experiences with Louisiana State’s stove artifact.  
  • Present sketch exploration to Amy on 3/16.
• Continued research regarding tactile objects (Specific papers TBD). 

Week 1 (Due 3/4/21)

Project Kick-off meeting scheduled for 3/5/21.