How can we provide opportunities to the seeing impaired through innovative technology?
Illiterate through incovenience
Because of the size of braille books, a growing population of the seeing impaired community are deciding to not learn this valuable skill.
Expensive and Limited Technology
While digital braille readers do exist, they are single functioning, expensive, and very limited. You can either read one line of 18 cell braille or write, you can’t do both simultaneously. These electronic braille readers also cost thousands of dollars.
Learning Braille goes beyond reading
There’s a direct relationship between being able to read and write brail and employment opportunities for the blind.
Of the 26 percent of blind people who are employed, the majority of them are braille readers.
Haptic feedback, or the ability to sense touch on digital services by applying vibrations to the end user, is a new, innovative technology that is becoming more common in electronic devices. Companies like Immersion and HapTx are incorporating sensory capabilities in things such as smart phones, TVs and computers.
Use haptic technology to instantly translate flat digital text into sensorily raised braille.
Apple’s Vision Accessability initative is unrivaled. Through a simple selection in settings, a user can activate VoiceOver, audio descriptions, and image recognition to easily convert their iPad or iPhone to a digital tool catered to their impairment.