"As cell phones have become an increasingly conspicuous part of everyday life, they have also become more and more powerful, equipped with computer operating systems and more features being added with every new model. Web browsers, e-mail, multimedia messaging, voice dialing, phone books, word processors, multi-color displays, and cameras are some of the features available on today's cell phones, but there are concerns among the blind and visually impaired community as to whether or not these and other cell phone features will be accessible." - American Foundation for the Blind

How it works:
Tactile enables blind users to access the multitude of features offered by today's multi-touch mobile devices through a system of digital texture. An array of conductive pins beneath the multi-touch screen sends localized pulses of electricity that simulate a physical pressure in the nerves of the user’s fingertips. Each pin acts as a pixel of digital texture that can change as dynamically as a traditional display, allowing the blind to navigate multi-tiered menus and complex features using their heightened sense of touch.

Tactile has been featured in several tech blogs, including Brailleworks, The Design Blog, and Cellphone Beat.

1. A conductive pin stimulates the nerves in the user's fingertips with a small electric pulse.
2. The electrical signal is transmitted through the nerves where the user's brain interprets the electric pulse as a physical texture.
3. The user experiences the sensation of a physical texture as they run their fingers across the electrotactile array.

Design process:
Tactile is the result of a design exercise conducted under the supervision of designers from Teague Product Studio in Seattle, WA addressing how a designer can imbue an object with a "product story" that enhances its value by connecting with the consumer on an emotional level. The development of Tactile began with the development of an abstract concept, which evolved into an expressive artifact and finally into a product.

Abstract: "Time"
The process began with a brainstorm of concepts associated with "time". From this brainstorm I chose three ideas to explore: fate, hibernation, and beat - as they relate to time.

Visualizing the abstract:
A "mood" was developed from the concepts chosen from the word cloud. After exploration around the concepts of hibernation, fate, and beat as they related to time, beat, was selected for further exploration.

Creating an artifact:
Building further on the concept of beat as "the texture of time", I created a wooden model that embodies beat as a repetitious physical pattern, choosing driftwood as a primary material because the material itself is the product of the repetitious beat of waves.

From abstract to artifact to product:
Blind and visually impaired people (who rely on texture) are being left behind by the advancement of mobile phone technology. In my research I found that work is being done in the field of electrotactile technology. While the technology is still early in its development, test subjects were able to recognize basic shapes using only their sense of touch across an array of conductive pins. Tactile is a future application of this technology, which engages the sense of touch by sending digital information as pulses (beats) of electricity to the user's fingertips which is interpreted by their nerves as a physical texture.