BlindBox: A Design Kit for Co-Creating Mobile User Interfaces with Blind and Visually Impaired Individuals

Mobile interface design relies heavily on visual methods like sketches and wireframes, systematically excluding blind and visually impaired (BVI) users from meaningful participation in design processes. This paper presents BlindBox, a co-design toolkit that enables BVI users to prototype mobile interfaces using modular, tactile components representing standard UI elements. These magnetic components can be arranged on a physical phone template, with an integrated camera system for digitizing layouts and enabling collaborative iteration. Developed through participatory workshops, BlindBox transforms interface design from a visual to a tactile practice, creating a shared language between BVI and sighted collaborators. Workshops with two BVI participants demonstrated that they could confidently express interface ideas through physical manipulation, moving beyond consultation toward genuine co-creation. BlindBox contributes a practical design kit for inclusive design that empowers BVI users as active interface creators rather than passive evaluators, while potentially offering broader applications for participatory design with other communities.