Planning

A few of the sketches and plans that began proceedings

Published 30 May 2025

Ideas and sketches

Time was spent formulating ideas, sketching them on paper and doing a bit of research as well to help guide that initial thinking and learn of more realities of and about visual impairments and existing products that answer certain requirements.

Two sheets of paper alongside each other show some sketches of game elements, like a side-on view of how a grid could work and how tiles with a triangle to help position them might work; both have plenty of scribbled notes but it all helped me to visualise and define possibilities. — Parts of some sketches I made as I began exercising my fine motor skills alongside developing my ideas.

A plan of a large white square (edged by a grey border) that represents a Scrabble board and is made up of 225 small cells that each show a triangle within them that would act as the orientation device for, and the secure holding of, played letter tiles; multiplier cells retain their typical Scrabble colours, use initials to indicate triple word or double letter, for instance, and have small raised dowels of, appropriate number, to aid tactility for the blind. — One of my first digital plans that contains some notes and sizes of elements that helped me figure out details.

Quite a few sketches were made despite my own visual impairments and fine motor skills being a little tricky to steadily work with these days but, like the parts of two pages of sketches shown above, there were some decent attempts that added confidence to my thought processes and intentions.

A grey border indicates a tray – that has directional arrows at its corner to aid finding which way is up – that holds a black game board with multiplier cells coloured and small rhombus at all cell corners to indicate a raised element that securely holds tiles – that themselves have small, angled corners so as to fit – in place to aid those that touch to read the braille of them but not disturb their position. — This plan of the game board shows the introduction of double-sided tiles, improved colour contrast and how tiles could sit securely to the board.

With a few notes stating sizes, this plan shows a game board with a grid over it that holds some black with white text and white with black text tiles (all with braille – illustrated on top) to show the potential of improved choices with colour contrast and the holding of played tiles, alongside a side view to its right that illustrates the combined elements that can bring something like this together: a turntable; a tray to hold double-sided board; board; and grid on top which holds played tiles. — Possibly one of the first plans to introduce the inverse braille effect of multiplier cells and prove potential of all key game elements being double-sided.

Digital plans

The digital planning stage that followed sketching sort of began when ideas were still being noted (and not really being chosen) but helped in those latter stages of drawing and scribbling words to assist in confidence building and prove that it was much easier to be more accurate with sizes and positions of elements in the digital world and so became a little more reliable to move the project forward.

With focus and decent energy levels I could competently get through a few hours, generally per day but sometimes all in one, sort of surprise myself with some of the progress I made, until I decided an idea needed work, or abandoning!

Parts of plans showing three separate side views made (with good colour differences to help me see them more easily!) that assisted me in figuring out the positioning and sizing of game elements – turntable, tray, board and grid – for first, constructing in balsa, then latterly in plywood. — Examples of side-on views made of game elements that, with the bottom one, show that fixing and hinging of the grid was a possibility.

Side-by-side, a sketch and a digital plan show progress of figuring out how best to hold seven tiles for players that require braille touch to see what they have; essentially, individual squares that prevent sliding so a little more control is reached and, because of angles, allow for a shallow side and a more upright side so players have two options for seeing (or hiding!) their tiles. — Sketches and plans of potential tile holders that show the figuring out of them to being twice as useful, given they could have two sides!

Many plans were made and many options within them were also thought of, mocked up and mulled over for quite a few days; a lot of back and forth occurred with plenty of diving into and around specific measurements, materials and possibilities but eventually decisions got made, materials abandoned and alternative processes followed . . .