3.2 | Self Evaluation

Overall, the first prototype of this tangible education toolkit did achieve our design goal. From the user feedback, it shows the CodeRhythm do able to enhance programming learning experience of blind and visually impaired (BVI) novice learners. However, there still some problems spotted during the process and should be further modify in the next version of the prototype.

3.2.1 Appearance

​Fig. 1. burn marks on the edge of a syllable block

There are a lot of burn marks and burn edges on the wood caused by the laser cutting process, and it make the wood looks kind of rough and dirty. One way to prevent burn marks is to stick a layer of paper tape on top of the wood before laser cutting it. The burn marks can also be sand out with sand paper.

3.2.2 Material

When relative humidity is high, the plywood is very likely to get damp and bend, which eventually affect the contact surface and leads to unstable connection between two blocks. This problem did actually occurred several times during the prototyping process, especially in rainy days. Materials such as acrylic, mental, or even engineered wood can be used to replace plywood for better connections.

3.2.3 Connection

• Orientation of Connection Surface

From our user studies, the participant can easily distinguish the correct orientation of the connection by herself without any instruction. However, the time for this process can be further shorten by eliminating all the other possible incorrect ways to connect two blocks. The shape of the block can be further modify such that the orientation can be more  ​distinguishable.

​Fig. 2. correct orientation (left), incorrect but possible orientation (right)

​Fig. 3. new appearance design to prevent incorrect orientation

• Signal Direction

Sometime users might be confused by the direction of the signal. Different people or different cultural might have different preference in reading, either from left to right or from right to left. Therefore, some tactile indicator is needed to indicate the left-to-right signal direction.

​Fig. 4. more tactile indicator is needed to indicate the left to right signal direction

​