Imagine a world where you can type in a zip code or post code and instantly feel under your fingers a simple, well-formatted, tactile street map enabling you to explore by touch the surrounding streets enhancing orientation and independence.
Imagine tactile street maps that let you pan and zoom to build understanding of the surrounding area, your neighbourhood, or where you work or go to school.
Imagine no longer.
Thanks to a unique collaboration between Dot and Dr. Josh Miele, tactile street maps are now coming to Dot Pad. You are invited to join us on this journey.
Ahead of our live webinar on Sep 14, 2026 where you will learn how to get started, we connect with scientist, inventor, MacArthur Fellow, and Principal Accessibility Researcher at Amazon, Dr. Josh Miele.
Josh breaks down his pioneering work on the Tactile Map Automated Production system (TMAP), sharing his lifelong love for maps, his journey through accessibility design, and why tactile spatial information is critical for blind independence.
Highlights:
- Josh discusses his undergraduate years, interning at NASA (Goddard Space Flight Center) on the Mars Observer project. We hear how Josh's career pivoted to accessibility when he worked on one of the first GUI screen readers, Outspoken, and shifted his focus toward designing tools by blind people, for blind people.
- We learn about the genesis of TMAP (Tactile Map Automated Production) at Smith-Kettlewell in 2003. A project to solve the challenge of needing a sighted person to custom-craft every tactile street map.
- Josh explains why Tactile Maps Matter, why turn-by-turn audio routing isn't enough. Tactile maps provide spatial context, high-level overviews, and allowing users to build mental/cognitive models of an area from our homes before venturing out.
- Finally Josh explains the latest leg of the journey and looks to the future as we take TMAP from a hardcopy paper-based experience to rendering tactile street maps on refreshable tactile displays.
Resources:
- Register for Navigating the World with Dot Pad and TMAP, Sep 14, 2026: https://us06web.zoom.us/.../reg.../WN_AStQ9Hq6S1mmR-dBi5hj2g
- Try TMAP on Dot Pad: https://touchout.org/tmap/
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TMAP hardcopy service via the San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired: https://madlabdesign.org/tmap
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Book: Connecting Dots: A Blind Life by Dr. Josh Miele.
https://mielelab.com/connecting-dots/ -
Discover the Dot Pad X tactile display
https://www.dotincorp.com/en/product/dotpadx
