Sensing Wonderland

early ideation

We explored a range of potential solutions, including interactive wall panels, rope-based navigation, topographical maps, and connected surfaces using varied materials to guide users through the experience. We also considered several narrative directions, such as The Gingerbread Man, Mario Party 8, and Noah’s Ark, before ultimately selecting Alice in Wonderland for its strong potential to support immersive, multisensory storytelling.

Early sketches

Young blind children need interactive cues like sound, texture, and role-play, since long verbal descriptions lose their attention.
Reddit r/Blind educator comment (2024); YouTube demos of blind children exploring texture (2023).

Problem

Most children’s stories rely heavily on visuals, limiting how blind and visually impaired children can experience them. Few storytelling environments allow these children to actively explore narratives through touch, sound, scent, and movement.

Sensing Wonderland is an immersive storytelling experience for blind and visually impaired children that reimagines Alice in Wonderland through touch, sound, scent, taste, and movement instead of sight. Designed as an escape‑room style environment, children move through tactile spaces where audio cues, scents, and interactive objects guide them through the story. Key moments like shrinking and growing are created through changes in space, texture, and sound, transforming a traditionally visual narrative into a multisensory adventure.

Supporting evidence

1

Most children’s stories depend on visuals, leaving blind children with few engaging, interactive options.
Reddit r/Blind discussion on children’s storybook accessibility (2024).

2

Storyboard

high fidelity prototype

Sensing Wonderland is an immersive storytelling experience for blind and visually impaired children that reimagines Alice in Wonderland through touch, sound, scent, taste, and movement. As children move through the story, tactile environments, audio cues, scents, and interactive objects guide them through key moments, turning a traditionally visual narrative into a multisensory adventure.

why it matters

Inclusive multisensory storytelling lets blind and low-vision children explore and play independently, building confidence, problem solving skills, and spatial understanding. It also encourages shared play between blind and sighted peers, fostering empathy and reinforcing that accessibility is an essential part of meaningful storytelling, not just an afterthought.

solution

3

Blind children form mental images through touch, sound, smell, and movement, not pictures, so storytelling must activate these senses.
DeLeon (Quora, 2017); Long (Quora, 2016).