Maria, P1.1 Research

So...

My Visual Calendar is based on the concept of Braille, which is a "method that is widely used b blind people to read and write".

Of course with doing something like this, there is a LOT of research to do! For example, here are a few questions I asked myself to really give me an understanding on the needs of my client:

* How can they know colour?

* How can they tell the time?

* Do they have an existing calendar?

* If so, what needs to be improved?

* Do they need a calendar to place their reminders of events or appointments on certain days?

* Keeping in mind, that there needs to be a record of International Holidays. (Basing on Qatar both Islamic and Christian holidays).

So.. first where I looked was about if a blind person CAN actually differentiate colour?

Firstly, there are many degrees of blindness; those who are born blind and those who have developed blindness later in life through an accident or disease.

- Born Blind people, thought never seen colour, can tell if it is Morning or Night, basically through light sensitivity. Though since

 they have never seen colour before, they wouldn't be

 able to tell someone what colour they can actually see.

- Those who developed blindness or vision impurities, have seen colour in their earlier life. Thus can differentiate what sort of colour they see, as they could possibly still see some colour.

** So to conclude, what i need to do, is rather on focusing on colour selection, I would need to focus on gradient and colour intensity. To show a clear difference in colours: Such as a solid brown colour (having a strong Black quality) would be clearly darker than a pastel yellow (which contains stronger white qualities).**

Thinking more into this issue, for those who are blind, of course they wouldn't really notice the colour, however those who are partially blind would still use this calendar, hence colour would be a good aspect. One of my ideas is to us the colour to represent the season, so in a way, it allows the blind person to also learn, what colours are associated with that specific season, and in their own way, may they (partially blind person) be able to see that certain colour or a fully blind person would be able to sense a gradient.

Moving to the next question:

"How do blind or partially blind people tell time?"

- There are Braille watches that have a tactile surface. By touching the face of the watch, time can be identified. Another popular alternative is the "talking" watch or clock, which announces the time when passed.

One more aspect of the calendar I will include is textures, as a blind person is largely dependent on the sense of touch, a texture can give them an experience they wouldn't be able to see. Either using the texture to show the different seasons (i.e. rough texture for summer where its hot, whilst a smooth texture for the coolness of winter) or different events they want to mark on their calendar.

Last note... whilst making this calender, there are various ways in which I could show the Braille dots, of course the first thing comes to mind would be embossing. Though due to the short time period, I'll either emboss the dots myself (with a pen... yes... it will be tiring) or i will just cut out the dots.