In the 2024 edition of Design Day, the MuseScore project stood out, highlighting how technology and accessibility can intertwine to create a profound impact in the community. Music composition should be accessible to all, but for musicians with vision loss, traditional notation software can pose significant challenges. A team of engineering students tackled this issue head-on, enhancing MuseScore — a popular free, open-source music notation program — to improve its accessibility.
A real-world solution for inclusive music notation
Five students — Ibrahim Camara, Rahima Daher, Hamza El Mendri, Amine Benhadda and Levy Coulibaly — dedicated their term to making MuseScore easier to navigate for users who rely on screen readers and braille displays. To do this, they partnered with the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Engineering Design and Joël Dazé, a music teacher with blindness.
Simply put, they created features allowing users to navigate and compose music more independently, removing barriers for educators, musicians and learners alike.
Diving into MuseScore’s extensive codebase, the students focused on two key objectives:
- integrating speech output and braille support for on-screen navigation
- providing real-time feedback on score position — bar, beat, staff and system — so visually impaired users know exactly where they are in the composition
The journey was not without obstacles. Adapting a large-scale open-source project required extensive research, collaboration with the global MuseScore community and continuous feedback from Dazé. Through multiple iterations, the team refined their solution, ensuring it met the practical needs of visually impaired musicians.
Making a meaningful impact
For Dazé, the improved software means a new level of independence in composing music and teaching his students — some of whom are also visually impaired. “It means a lot to me as I discover that people have the same vision to remove barriers to participation for people who want to make art or music,” Dazé notes. “At the end of it, they … are making a difference in the quality of life for people.” This project is poised to improve access to music notation tools for Dazé and his students.
This project exemplifies how accessibility-focused design can transform learning experiences for people of all abilities. It underscores the Faculty of Engineering’s commitment to solving real-world challenges, empowering students to develop prototypes in direct response to community needs.
What’s next for the MuseScore accessibility project?
Building on the success of this project, Dazé and the Faculty of Engineering hope to assemble a team to make ongoing accessibility enhancements in MuseScore. Their goal is to make more educational software and creative tools barrier-free.
If you’re inspired by inclusive design and innovation and you want to learn more, the next uOttawa Design Day takes place in the fall 2025. It will showcase student-driven solutions that make a real difference.