Designing inclusive tech playful educative solutions for visually impaired learners in STEM education

Abstract Education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) is essential to achieving continued technological advancement. The most critical years for instilling knowledge are during childhood, and a strategic way to accomplish this is through playful materials. Therefore, there is a need to develop more inclusive solutions to achieve the good inclusion of visually impaired (VI) learners in this learning area. Despite their importance, specific design guidelines are scarce for developing playful, educational solutions for VI learners in STEM. Qualitative research was conducted through interviews and observations of the interactions between VI Learners playing an audio game and tactile 3D printed blocks, which covered an age range of young participants aged 8–18 years and adults aged 30–40 years in Taiwan. Surprisingly, the results showed that the combination of tangible and audio elements for playful purposes opens the way for students to show interest during educational interactions and, at the same time, allows them to understand the concept, especially when presented in different game missions but repeating the same principle/concept. In conclusion, there is a need for more inclusive strategies and approaches for playful STEM tools for VI learners, and one important aspect of achieving this is design guidelines. This study aims to understand the educational context of VI learners and their interactions when playing with educational materials to learn STEM concepts and develop design guidelines for the future development of playful STEM educational games.