Duidu
An accessible drawing canvas that maps strokes to sound for visually impaired users.
- Year
- 2025
- Role
- Accessibility Dev
- Stack
- SwiftUICoreHapticsAVFoundationPencilKit
Concepts I've been exposed to
01
Simulated vibration
02
Creativity for Visually Impaired
03
Accessibility
What is Duidu?
Duidu is an accessible drawing canvas. A very simple interface that holds a powerful vision: making drawing accessible for visually impaired people. The drawing is mapped through sound, stereo panning for horizontal strokes and pitch modulation for vertical strokes. This core feature, that we called "Geometric Audio", is critical to generate a mental map of the stroke. But this is not everything. Duidu also offers the opportunity to feel the drawing with a tactile experience: passing the finger on the strokes of the canvas enables the user to feel a vibration that simulates the tactile sensation of the raised drawing pads.
What did I learn from this experience?
Cooperation with humans. Thanks to this project I had the opportunity to communicate with associations (CIVES, Strachan) and to get in touch with the necessities of people. I did learn that what I do is very important and that our help can be so meaningful. Too many times we take for granted things that for some people could mean the world and a deep dive in this world has been a very insightful experience.
Then I had to think laterally. iPads do not have the vibration motors, so with my team we had to think for a solution. How do we merge the needed size of the iPad with the necessity of a vibration?
We found a solution. Go check it on the App Store!
Attitude in the project
We were listeners. Developing for people that experience the world in a different manner than me needed a lot of care and sensibility. The team had to forget how it was to live like everyday and put ourselves in the shoes of people that do not have the possibility to see. So it has been useful to think like we were always in the wrong. It has been complicated because we needed to re-think every single action that until that time we were doing naturally without thinking, we had to exit from the automatic way of living and doing things: something as easy as picking up a bottle to drink became our biggest challenge and listen to the guidance and help of the community of low-vision people has been a real blessing. We were not developers, we were humans understanding how to live.