*3.1. Formative Study*

We conducted a formative study with four blind, one visually impaired, and a school for the blind art teacher as participants to ge<sup>t</sup> a better understanding of the needs of blind and visually impaired people when exploring color in visual artworks.

#### 3.1.1. Experiencing Colors in Visual Artwork by Blind and Visually Impaired People

The main focus of the study was on the current opportunities, tools available, and challenges faced by the participants to explore color information in visual artworks. The average age of the participants was 24.2 years (standard deviation of 1.6). Of the five participants in the study, three are women (60%), and two are men (40%). All of the participants are university students. More information on their characteristics is available in Table 5. All the participants gave signed informed consent for the study based on the procedures approved by the Sungkyunkwan University Institutional Review Board.

**Table 5.** Characteristics of blind and visually impaired participants in our formative study.


The formative study involved a semi-structured interview. We began by inquiring about the participant's experience when exploring color from visual artworks. All the participants expressed the limited methods available at museums, art galleries, and even schools.

They commented that at museums and galleries, most color explanations are provided verbally by the staff. Some of them expressed being uncomfortable when receiving the information that way since they fear appearing *"dumb or being judged (FP2)"* if they repeatedly ask for further explanations. Participants without prior color experiences were very vocal about the challenges of receiving color properties verbally since *"without prior experience, learning such abstract concepts is very tough"*. After further inquiries, it seemed much of the interest in an artwork's color information stemmed from peaking surrounding conversations of other people where they actively discussed or made expressions of wonder about the color contents. About the participants' experience when exploring a visual artwork color contents using tactile means, only two of the participants expressed having explored an artwork through a tactile graphic at a museum-gallery setting. However, all five participants stated having experience tactually exploring colors during their early education years. Those participants that expressed having explored visual artwork color content by touch expressed their experience as challenging. *"(FP4) When you explore a paint or picture colors by touch, the first thing you need to do is find the key or legend to learn which texture patterns correspond to each color. If there are few uniform colors in the painting, this is not such a big problem, but, as soon as the number of colors grows, it becomes hard to remember all of them"*. The participants added that this approach does not work very well in paintings where colors transition gradually from one color to another as these transitions are difficult to pick up by tact. Another participant added that if the tactile graphic of the artwork and

color textures are used together in one tactile graphic, it is challenging to identify which tactile features correspond to the painting shapes and which to color.

After inquiring about their current state, we proceeded to ask about their color experiences through sensory substitution. While none of the participants expressed having experienced color through a different channel (except for audio descriptions and tactile graphic experiences mentioned earlier) in a museum gallery setting, all the participants stated having experienced color through sensory substitution during their life. For example, one of the participants described his experience using color markers with fruit and flavor scents as a kid. The participant stated that using those markers was a pleasant experience that helped make common associations between colors and scents similar to sighted people. Other participants recollected their experience learning about color through temperature and brightness. When asked about their opinion about using musical sounds and scents for artwork color exploration, most users expressed their concern about the technical feasibility. Nevertheless, they showed interest in the experience as they believe that a proper mapping between color, music, and scent could help experience color in an enjoyable way other than just matching abstract semantic concepts that do not produce any reaction. *"(FP3) Even if I could touch the textures (tactile color representation) and immediately recognize the specific shades of many colors, what would be the artistic value of that? I want to touch or feel something (either by audio, smell, or other means) and feel awed by that just like a sighted person feels when they see the colors on the painting"*. Besides the time spent with the participants, we had the opportunity to interview an art teacher from a school for the blind. This participant emphasized the importance of a multi-sensory approach for color education by stating that color education is more memorable using the multi-sensory approach. In addition, the abstract concepts of color are easier to grasp through analogies with other sensory experiences. The art teacher also emphasized the importance of color education from an artistic and aesthetic perspective.
