Design for and with visual impairments through 3D printing: a case study from the covid-19 pandemic

This work aims to investigate the contribution of the design practice and 3D printing to improve the learning experience of visually impaired students through a collaborative design case study. The collaborative development of "IO", a multifunctional tool for visually impaired students in distance learning contexts, is presented in this work together with the results from the user tests of the experimentation. Thanks to the open design principles and the flexibility of 3D printing, these assistive tools can improve the learning experience during the whole school career regardless of disruptive events i.e., the Covid-19 pandemic.