Dot pad

The first smart tactile graphics display for the visually impaired.

While most people rely on visuals to understand complex topics, the 285 million blind and visually impaired people around the world are left out. The Dot Pad from Dot Inc. bridges the gap and makes graphical content accessible like never before. It can display visual content from any source through the innovative Dot Image Processing technology. This technology, developed in 2022, uses Al to analyze and understand visual input then find the most accurate way to present it on Dot Pad's tactile display of 2,400 dots.

Client
Dot Inc.
Year
2022
Role
Art direction, concept, design concept, strategy, project management, outreach, pitch development, PR, experience design, digital design
Links
Website
Awards

The patented Dot actuator technology 3.0 makes Dot Pad more than ten times smaller, lighter and more energy efficient than existing tactile devices.

Dot Image Processor is an AI that was trained with millions of existing visual and tactile graphics, to be able to analyze, understand and segment visual content, and translate it to tactile graphics most suitable for blind users.

The processor also scans a cloud database of existing tactile images for matches. This reduces processing time and ensures that high-quality graphics can be reused.

Thanks to a partnership with Apple, Dot Pad integrates seamlessly with iOS and iPadOS, thereby giving users access to the 2.2 million apps on the App Store, out of the box.

For the first time, visually impaired people can access any visual content on the internet. Dot Pad encourages independent learning, creates further employment opportunities, and empowers diverse artists and creators.

To create further software and hardware support for tactile graphics, Dot Inc. is in touch with major players in the field to create a unified tactile graphic file format and a dedicated open database of tactile graphics.