Research Overview

In the summer of 2023, I was chosen to be Professor Lauren Milne’s research team of 5 to develop a new iteration of Blocks4All — a block-based programming environment designed for children with low vision and mobility impairments. Part of the development team, we translate our research findings, both from Blocks4All, other commerical/accessible educational technology (Scratch, Torino, and TIP-toy) and accessible design frameworks, into child-friendly Help, Settings, and Robot Pairing screens in Figma (mock-ups) & Swift (iPad App).

During our application design and development, we also implemented QA and alpha testing to discover critical bugs, resolve warnings as well as add new learning features while improving compatibility with iOS assistive technology and UI efficiency.

Achievement

We got to present our summer research at Macalester College’s MacFest along a hundred other projects today! A great way to end this amazing opportunity during which I learned so much, both about Swift programming and accessible technology, from my professor Lauren Milne as well as fellow crazily talented researchers ❤️

Blocks4All

Blocks4All is a block-based programming environment designed for children with low vision and mobility impairments. It’s free and available on iPad, and it is compatible with almost all Switch devices via iOs Switch Control and Voice Over technology