This paper presents an audio-tactile approach to teaching programming, focusing on the presentation of flowcharts to help blind students understand the operational principles of basic concepts e.g., variables, constants, expressions, operators, control structures (e.g., conditional instructions, loops), functions, and algorithms (e.g., min-max search, recursion, searching, and sorting). The developed platform is designed for use by both sighted and visually impaired students during programming courses. The proposed method integrates tactile flowcharts (physical tactile drawings) corresponding to images displayed on a touchscreen Android tablet, with the Socratic teaching method to enhance conceptual comprehension. This enables blind students to grasp algorithmic concepts and their implementation across multiple programming languages. To evaluate the platform's effectiveness, a study was conducted with 33 participants with blindness, divided into a control group and a research group. Results were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Significant improvements were observed in the usability scores of the proposed platform, measured using the System Usability Scale, and in perceived task load, as evaluated through a task load test, when compared to traditional learning methods. This paper contributes to computing education by proposing a structured, alternative method for teaching algorithms through audio-tactile flowcharts, providing educators with a consistent framework for organizing accessible educational materials. The approach reduces the effort required for blind students to master programming concepts, enhancing inclusivity in computer science education.

Due to the limitations in the perception of graphical information by blind people and the need to substitute the sense of sight with other senses, the correct use of multimedia in the presentation of graphics is particularly important. The aim of the authors was to correctly present visual information in the tactile and audio form and to provide contextually selected information to reduce the existing cognitive barriers. In this article, the authors decided to research the method of exploring a tactile picture by a blind person and providing contextual and semantic information about the touched image elements using the developed tool for multimodal presentation of interactive audio-tactile graphics supporting the perception of blind people. The use of multimedia should improve the perception of the conveyed content. Therefore, the effectiveness of interpreting the information contained in the tactile image is verified by analyzing the tactile, audio, and contextual perceptions during the experiments. The following issues were considered in detail from the point of view of the blind and visually impaired: the recognition of shapes of image elements depending on their size and properties, the optimal width of elements displayed on the tablet screen, the time intervals between taps on an image element, and the acceptable length of graphic element audio description. The results from this study suggest the need to select the image presentation parameters in various perception channels to the user's needs. The findings of our research on tactile shape perception of geometric figures indicate potential problems in recognizing the shapes of figures in the case of wrong preparation of tactile pictures. In the case of a small difference in the proportions of the length of the sides of the figure or a slight difference in the measures of the angles of the figure sides, we have noticed that most blind people fail to recognize its shape. Considerable progress in improving such perception can be achieved by increasing the proportions in the lengths of the sides and the measures of the angles between the sides of the figure. Further steps concern introducing an alternative audio description of the properties of the figure so as to improve the interpretability of the figure shape. For most users, the width of a virtual line in a digital image displayed on a tablet should be around 5 mm for a corresponding 1 mm tactile line. The configuration of the time intervals defining the user's gestures (two-taps, three-taps) should be about 340 ms. Applying audio descriptions to tactile picture elements improves the understanding and interpretation of the information presented on it. Most participants in the test group accepted 5 to 10 seconds of voice prompts. Longer messages were incomprehensible, and details were hard to remember. In the proposed solution, the audio description can be divided into two or three different descriptions available to the user after tapping two or three times on an image element. It allows the user to decide on the amount of contextual information needed about the touched tactile picture element. The research attempted to show the typical values of various image presentation parameters and their ranges of values and indicated effective methods of their selection for a specific system user.

Nowadays, the math learning is an important step in developing professional carriers in technical and economic sciences. Increasing the number of e-learning tools used in universities courses can reduce the potential barrier of access to mathematical knowledge, but most of them are not accessible for impaired students. Moreover, classical printed math books include little explicit instructional information about structural information interpretations. Taking into account these barriers the article presents the developed method used for creating interactive steps of decomposed math’s exercise solution and alternative description of math formulas accessible for the blind. The elements of proposed methodology: generation of state machine, design and presentation of transition conditions, generating the presentation layer and a typical usage by a blind user are presented. A set of rules for describing mathematical formulas were proposed after consultation with mathematicians and teachers of blind people. The application was developed as web application. The graphical interface of presented application was designed using PHP and JavaScript technologies. The collection of prepared exercises include about 240 prepared exercises from different areas of mathematics and 60 selected exercises including alternative description layer. About 1000 students and about 40 impaired students, from 6 faculties of the university use this platform during math courses for both self and class learning. The defined rules were used to read aloud mathematical formulas to the visually impaired people with a different level of mathematical knowledge. The results confirmed good understanding of mathematical formulas by using prepared alternative description.