LightSight (2018)

 

LightSight is a new interactive toy for children with cerebral visual impairment (CVI) that we built during the Schaukasten project. To be precise, the device was created by the three students Hana, Konstantin, and Niloufar during a comprehensive Master-Level course named 'Building Interaction Interfaces' (for Media Informatics). The development of LightSight is a good example for a project-based teaching process, where students independently conduct research to solve a probleme and hence discover or construct new knowledge. In the case of LightSight, the problem space was defined by the needs of children with CVI.

Children affected by CVI face different challenges in their perception and processing of information, and it is important to provide them with appropriate tools to train their vision skills and related competencies. To address this need, a tangible and illuminated dice was designed by Hana, Konstantin, and Niloufar. The dice wirelessly communicates with a game running on a tablet (dice and game together form LightSight). This concept should provide a playful way for the children to train their vision and a range of related motor and cognitive skills (e.g. manipulating the device with their hands, learning shapes etc.).

Understanding this interactive toy is simple enough for children who are below the age of 6 years. In summary, the three students carefully considered the following requirements in their design:

  • High-contrast colors
  • Light emitting
  • Good for small hands
  • Soft surface
  • Robust button mechanisms
  • Low-risk batteries (no LiPo accumulators etc.)
  • Rechargeable
  • Portable (home visits)

 

Acknowledgements

  • This research was funded by "Gemeinsame Gesundheitsziele aus dem Rahmen-Pharmavertrag, eine Kooperation von österreichischer Pharmawirtschaft und Sozialversicherung".
  • Prototype: Hana, Konstantin, and Niloufar
  • Sketching credits: Peter Fikar

References

  • Salihodzic H., Zilberburg K., Chakhmaghi N., Güldenpfennig F., Fikar P., and Ganhör R. (2018). LightSight: A Dice to meet the Eyes. In ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (DIS2018). Poster. PDF.

Images

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