Laura Kalola, Designer and Bachelor of Culture and Arts
The Moles Game A board game for visually impaired children and youth
Laura is a designer from Finland, who have always loved playing board games. She did some research and noticed that the majority of board games in the market are based on the sense of sight. Visually impaired people are not taken into account when designing board games. That is why she developed a board game that visually impaired and normally sighted people could play together. Most of the games for visually impaired are intended for pre-schoolers. The commercial board games that suits visually impaired, school aged and adults, cannot be found at all, so she designed a game for them.
Now after years of development and testing, ”The Moles Game” is ready for sale. It´s a wooden board game for four players. The minimum age limit is eight years. The board game and the tokens have been tested with visually impaired children and youth. Playing the game develops their fine motor skills, and it can be used for recreation, education and rehabilitation purposes. The product idea won the Assistive Technology Competition 2011 in Finland.