For this project I'll be working with Helen Zegarra on a keyboard design. We started by asking ourselves why we would need to re-design the existing keyboard. We decided that one of the most obvious reasons would be that people that had limited or no mobility with their hands would be unable to use a regular keyboard with ease.
We proceeded to think of ways people could potentially use a keyboard if not with hands and we ran through ideas like eyes, elbows, knees, feet and voice.
Eventually we landed on a keyboard controlled by a foot switch/pedal and a button also placed near the pedal. The idea is that as long as you're pressing the pedal, the keyboard would scroll through all the characters and once you stop, you may select the letter you stopped on by pressing the button to the side.
We realized that the user would need a visual of what the keyboard is doing so we thought of using a P5 sketch or something like in the drawing below which is a physical representation of what is happening. Ideally we would have a tiered base with slots that will have LED strips inside and etched acrylic on top. We would etch all the characters on the acrylic and each LED would light up a particular character while the keyboard scrolls through them. Once selected it would light up another color and we would need an indicator that the user may select another letter. This visual representation would communicate with the computer to tell it what the user needs.
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