Tactile graphics enable visually impaired people to access visual information via touch. Despite extensive guidelines and solutions, effectively representing color, vital for visual communication, remains a key challenge. This research aims to address this gap by developing RainbowTact, inspired by the correlation between visible colors and light wavelengths, to translate colors into intuitive tactile representations. RainbowTact distinguishes chromatic and achromatic colors using tactile wave and dot patterns depicting hues, saturations and brightness. Achromatic shades are shown by dot density and size. RainbowTact meets key design criteria: covering the full color space with omnidirectional, orientation-independent patterns aligning with standards. A software prototype automates conversion. A pilot study evaluated RainbowTact’s effectiveness and usability through quantitative and qualitative analyses. Results showed decent color identification success and increasing task efficiency. Users strongly favored RainbowTact, highlighting benefits like pattern differentiation and non-directionality. While initial learning ease scored lower, participants expressed overall positive inclination. This demonstrates RainbowTact’s potential to effectively convey color information via intuitive tactile representations to advance tactile graphics capabilities.
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