Supporting Mix-visual Abilities Musical Ensembles

November 23, 2022

Mixed-visual ability musical ensembles often serve as an excellent musical output for the skills of their performers and as a natural social environment for both sighted and visually impaired musicians. However, visually impaired musicians face multiple inclusivity challenges in their musical path. That is also the case for conducted musical ensembles, where the instructions of a conductor are central to the group's performance but are primarily visual, leading to the exclusion of visually impaired musicians. Previous research has shown that it is possible to increase a visually impaired person's access to information via haptic feedback, though most solutions involve expensive and custom hardware. In this work, we propose the Haptic Conductor, an inexpensive and inclusive support system for visually impaired musicians in mixed-visual ability musical ensembles. We conducted interviews with members of a mixed-visual ability musical ensemble, Filarmónica Enarmonia, and an observation of their rehearsal process. Then, we describe our user-centred design approach and the development process of the Haptic Conductor. The user study was performed through three different sessions with members of the Filarmónica, assessing the user experience, functionality, and potential of the Haptic Conductor. Although findings revealed challenges and limitations of the Haptic Conductor, the participants confirmed that our approach resulted in an accessible, functional, and inclusive system that can help their rehearsal process, facilitating the communication between conductor and musician. There is also an opportunity to continue the development of the Haptic Conductor in the future, adding functionalities to cover more users' needs and bridge its limitations.

Authors in the community:

• 

  L

  Luís Miguel Maia da Cruz Barreira

  ist425908

Supervisors of this institution:

• 

  H

  Hugo Nicolau

  ist153934

electrical-engineering-electronic-engineering-information-engineering - Electrical engineering, electronic engineering, information engineering

eng - English

Instituto Superior Técnico