Daedalus in the Dark: Designing for Non-Visual Accessible Construction of Laser-Cut Architecture

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Design tools and research for laser-cut architectures have been widely explored in the past decade. However, this discussion has mostly revolved around technical and structural design questions instead of another essential element of laser-cut models - assembly - a process that relies heavily on visual affordance of components, therefore less accessible to blind or low vision (BLV) people. To close this gap, we co-designed with 7 BLV people to examine their assembly experience with different laser-cut architecture. Distilled from their feedback, we proposed several design heuristics and guidelines for Daedalus, a generative design tool that can produce tactile aids for laser-cut assembly given a few high-level manual inputs. We validate the proposed aids in a user study with 8 new BLV participants. Our results revealed that BLV users can manage laser-cut assembly more efficiently with Daedalus. Going forth from this design iteration, we discuss implications for future research on accessible laser-cut assembly.