Featuring an iOS guitar tuner app for visually impaired musicians.

Name: Tuneful

Design Functions

• Pressing the buttons simulates braille language, and plays the sound of the chosen note.

Design Inspirations

• The idea for a mobile guitar tuner for the visually impaired came when stumbling upon Google’s “TalkBack” Braille keyboard feature for Android. The interface and mechanics were very inclusive and integrative and piqued interest in terms of accessible and assistive UX/UI.

Problem

Accessible and usable music technology does not inclusively address the needs of the visually impaired.

Thesis

Design in music technology for the visually impaired needs to be more assistive rather than accessible so that visually impaired musicians can achieve at the same level as sighted musicians.

Current Assistive Music Technology

• Sound editing initiatives.
• Guided and customizable music reading initiatives
• Compositional and orchestral performance initiatives.

UX

Wireflow

Design Considerations

• Ergonomic Interface
  The 6-button key interface was built for comfort, efficiency, and inclusivity.

The guitar has 6 strings. Listed from low to high, the guitar string notes are:
E, A, D, G, B, E. In guitar tuning E, A, D, G, B,E is the standard, because it ergonomically eases finger and hand transition between chords, and scales with little fret-hand movement. Braille is similar in that characters can be touched in a natural hand position.

Click here to read the full case study on Prototypr.