Designing What I Cannot See: A Blind Maker's Journey with 3D Printing

https://cults3d.com/en/blog/articles/designing-what-i-cannot-see-blind-maker-3d-printing

I found 3D printing in 2023, at a workshop run by IBOS, the Danish Institute for the Blind and Partially Sighted. I expected a room full of other blind people. I was the only one. It turned out the workshop was for sighted people, teaching them how to make things for blind people.

That was when I got hooked. Suddenly I could feel what a building looked like. Braille could be printed for almost nothing. Emergency maps, which hang on almost every wall as flat pictures, could be made into something I could actually read. If sighted people could learn to make these things for us, I could learn to make them myself.

That is why I started Accessible3D. It has two goals. The first is to make objects that blind and visually impaired people can actually use and enjoy: things with braille, with texture, with shapes that carry meaning. The second is to show sighted designers that accessibility is not an extra feature you bolt on at the end. It is a design choice, and it makes objects better for everyone.