Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin Receives the Bronze A' Design Award for Tactilelink Tactile Graphic Education System in Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design

Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin recognized for education, teaching aid and training content design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

COMO, Italy, April 22, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Bronze A' Design Award in the Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design category for Tactilelink Tactile Graphic Education System by Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin, designed for Nuoran Chen. The result belongs to the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was reached through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.

The Bronze A' Design Award Explained

The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.

More About Tactilelink Tactile Graphic Education System

Tactilelink is a tactile graphic education system for blind and visually impaired students. Traditional hand over hand instruction limits student independence and depends on a scarce number of specialist teachers. Tactilelink combines a 3D printed tablet frame, raised line graphics of circuit diagrams and cross platform software. Sonification guides each student to a target component, as the pitch and intensity of the sound change with finger distance. Instructors can follow several students at once and prepare audio annotations for independent review after class.

About Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin

Nuoran Chen is a digital product designer at The New York Times, leading mobile subscription strategy across News, Games, and Cooking apps. Trained in architecture at UPenn and product design at UC Berkeley, he brings cross-disciplinary perspective to digital product design. His work spans mobile apps, VR/AR, and immersive brand storytelling, shaping how millions experience quality journalism. His designs have earned multiple international awards including the iF Design Award and IDEA Bronze, with features in Fast Company and exhibition at New York Design Week.

Award Record

Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin is a winner of 1 A' Design Award, including this recognition.

About the A' Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design Award

The A' Education Design Award is an international competition recognizing good education products and projects by leading designers and brands worldwide. The competition is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to education designers, teaching aid designers, training content creators and curriculum developers from all countries. Entries typically include textbooks, e-learning platforms, educational games, training manuals, instructional videos and interactive whiteboards. Awarded education designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/education

About A' Design Award & Competition

A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade organized annually since 2008. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The A' Design Award has a philanthropic mission to advance society through good design by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Entries are peer reviewed and anonymously evaluated by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. The A' Design Prize granted to eligible laureates includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, the upload of a work and the preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. Further information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com

Press Resources

Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/177478
A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/177478
Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!177478
Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/360848

Media Contact

Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953

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Fact Sheet

The Work

Project: Tactilelink Tactile Graphic Education System
Function: Tactile Graphic Education System
Category: Education, Teaching Aid and Training Content Design
Discipline: Service Design
Industry: Education
Colors: Lavender, Gainsboro, Dark Slate Gray, Dark Gray and Gray
Images: 5
Client: Nuoran Chen

The Recognition

Laureate: Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming Jin
Country: United States of America
Recognition: Bronze A' Design Award
Edition: 2025 - 2026
Design ID: #177478

Credits

Team: Nuoran Chen, Yilin Niu and Siming (Susie) Jin

Design Details

Unique Properties: Tactilelink is an affordable tactile graphic education system for blind and visually impaired students. Traditional hand-over-hand instruction limits students' independence and strains an already scarce specialist workforce. SoundPath lets a single instructor guide multiple students at once through sonification and voiceover annotations, making tactile graphic learning accessible, scalable, and independent.
Inspiration: The idea came from observing an Arduino class at the East Bay Center for the Blind, where one instructor had to physically guide each student's hands through circuit diagrams one by one. With nearly 5,000 specialist teachers short across the U.S., this one-on-one model is unsustainable. Inspired by sonification, we use continuous pitch changes to guide students to target components independently, enabling one teacher to instruct multiple students simultaneously, in person or remotely.
Research: This research is user-centered design. Our goal was to create an affordable system for teaching tactile graphics to visually impaired students. We observed Blind Arduino sessions and collaborated with the East Bay Center for the Blind, then used co-design workshops, Wizard of Oz prototyping, and usability testing with teachers and students. Results showed sonification on existing hardware best supported group learning, offering insights that impact education, accessibility, and inclusive design.
Challenge: The hardest part was shifting from designer to facilitator. Co-design challenged us to suspend our assumptions, especially as sighted designers. We wrongly assumed blind users would prefer vibration cues over sound. In reality, sonification was less fatiguing and more effective. This required overcoming internal bias, embracing user knowledge, and adapting to insights often overlooked due to our own perspective.
Realization and Technology: Tactilelink is built with simplicity, affordability, and accessibility in mind. For student’s system, it combines 3D-printed tablet frames with software optimized for common educational tablets, ensuring easy setup and scalability. It uses sonification to guide students in exploring and learning raised-line graphics. For instructor’s system, it’s an one-step, AI empowered software help they instruct multiple students easily, reducing their workload, expanding the educational capacity to more underserved blind students.
Operation and Interaction: During class, the instructor taps a selected component on the tactile graphic for students to explore. Students navigate to the component following sonification guidance: the pitch and intensity of the sound shift based on how close their finger is to the target. Teacher can observes their progress on their interface to provide real-time support. After class, teachers could use the software to create detailed audio annotation and design the component-learning sequence, publishing it to student’s device. Students could review the knowledge independently without teacher’s presence by following the sonification guidance.
Project Duration and Location: This project started in August 2024 and finished in December 2024.
Specifications: The physical components include a 3D-printed tablet frame (290 × 226 × 7 mm) and several tactile graphics of Arduino diagrams (279.4 × 215.9 mm). The digital component is cross-platform software that works as both a tablet app and a desktop web app, creating a flexible teaching system.
Keywords: Accessibility, Tactile graphic, Education system, Inclusive education, Blind Arduino