World Braille Day was first started in 2019, as a way of spreading awareness of the impact braille has in communication. 2021 World Braille Day will be even more significant seeing as 2020 was a tough year for people with vision disabilities. United Nations stepped up and instituted a Covid-19 response strategy that also respected the added hurdles disabled people would face. One of the biggest challenges was the dissemination of information, which was overcome by the use of braille-enabled assistive technology. In this blog, in the spirit of World Braille Day, we will be throwing some light on the assistive technology that makes use of braille. But first, let’s go back to the 1800s for a little story.
The Story of Braille language
It was Louis Braille from France who founded the braille language. His father operated a leather workshop. At the age of 3 (around 1812), brimming with the curiosity all children inherently have, he wandered into his father’s workshop. Tragedy struck as he accidently damaged one of his eyes with a stitching awl, which is basically the tool used to puncture belt holes. Medical care being what it was in those times, he couldn’t be treated for the injury fast enough. The injury spread to both his eyes, and soon Louise lost his eyesight completely.
Struggling to come up with a way he could continue reading and writing and basically make sense of the world despite his condition, Louise got to work. By the tender age of 15, he had devised a universal ‘language’ for people with vision impairments. Using this language, which we now call as braille language, partially or fully blind individuals could read and write. It was a language consisting of raised dots that could spell out words using its own alphabet.
Fast forward to the late 1900s when inventors thought they can make the world a better place for disabled individuals, especially considering the trend of technology and devices. Assistive technologies began to take shape, and finally, the Assistive Technology Act was passed in 1988, which clearly defined Assistive Technologies for the first time.
Assistive Technologies that use Braille
Refreshable Braille Displays
Refreshable braille displays are special screen devices which rely on electronic pins that rise and fall to support the raised dots of braille. A braille display device connects to a computer via a special type of cable. It accepts information on the computer screen as input, translates it, and displays it in braille, a line at a time. Each line consists of a series of pins that pop up on a rubber sheet to form braille characters. A cursor on the screen moves through the content, changing the line of braille characters to indicate the current information near the cursor.
Braille Translation Applications
While refreshable braille displays are hardware devices, there are software that convert written text into braille. Such a translated text can then be output via a special braille printer or through assistive technologies like screen readers whose screens are made bespoke for understanding and presenting braille.
Braille printers
No matter how much technology advances, it won’t eradicate plain old paper anytime soon. There are braille printers that print content as raised dots on special braille paper. Braille printers, also called as braille embossers, also use pins to cause slight dents in the paper to give the sensation of raised dots. A small program runs on the microchips fitted in the device that converts text into braille before giving ‘instructions’ to the pins.
Braille Note Takers
The above accessibility tools were for outputting text from another source. But what about input devices? There are braille note takers which can work with both special braille keyboards and our typical QWERTY keyboards. The input words can then be stored on the machine as files or displayed on the screen in real-time as the user types.
TekVision is in full support of World Braille Day. We'd also published an article on World Braille Day 2020.
Even though technology exists that converts everything to braille for both input and output, it helps if your online content is structured in a way that’s conducive for accessibility. And that is exactly what we do. If you are someone looking to make their content (including web pages, documents and multimedia) accessible and ready for assistive technology, reach out to us and we will get back to you.
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