Search results

Over the past two decades, a number of social and legislative forces have had the effect of increasing disabled peoples' attendance at institutions of higher education. Major national legislation, such as the landmark Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, requires provision of equal access for people with disabilities to educational programs that receive federal funding. The more recent Americans with Disabilities Act was signed into law by President Bush on 26 July 1990; considered by some the “Bill of Rights” for people with disabilities, the ADA extends opportunity in the areas of employment, housing, and a number of other basic civil rights.

In the past, conversion of a printed text to Braille has been a slow, painstaking process. Trained transcriptionists, using a Braille Writer, manually translated each character or group of characters into its appropriate Braille symbol. Using this method, the transcription of large text can take literally thousands of human‐hours and cost an exorbitant amount of money.

This study aims to examine Braille usage among consumers with visual impairments, investigating motivations and addressing inherent challenges.

Drawing insights from 16 semistructured interviews with individuals experiencing blindness, this study reveals nuanced aspects of Braille utilization.

Three key motivations for Braille usage are identified: as a coping mechanism for functional needs and to combat stigma; as an embodied experience contributing to pleasure; and as a heritage embodying a culture of visual impairment. Obstacles include cultural and financial barriers to learning, incomplete retail transcriptions limiting practicality and spatial congestion issues.

This study underscores Braille’s dual function as both coping mechanism and cultural heritage. By highlighting obstacles, it sheds light on challenges faced by consumers with visual impairments, facilitating advocacy and promoting inclusive retail practices. Originality lies in recognizing diverse motivations and experiences among Braille users, offering insights for enhancing tactile engagement in the marketplace.

This study investigates how environmental conditions for development in reading, as well as support in Braille and assistive technology, have influenced the literacy of 11 pupils in Norwegian mainstream schools. It was recommended that these pupils learn to read both Braille and print because of their severe visual impairments ie. a visual acuity of 0.1 (20/200), or complicated visual functioning. Their reading and participation in a modern society depends on extensive use of assistive technology. The analysis is based on the pupils' coping strategies in reading and interviews with pupils, teachers and parents. Findings show that the pupils have appropriate reading devices for Braille and print, but technical aid for Braille is infrequently used. Lack of competence in Braille and reading devices at school and home will influence stimulation of literacy and choice of reading media. Possibilities in assistive technology are thus not fully realised. Each pupil's individual needs, as well as ways in which support and stimulation could be provided, should therefore be addressed when recommending reading media and devices.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a system called Mubser to translate Arabic and English Braille into normal text. The system can automatically detect the source language and the Braille grade.

Mubser system was designed under the MS‐Windows environment and implemented using Visual C# 2.0 with an Arabic interface. The system uses the concept of rule file to translate supported languages from Braille to text. The rule file is based on XML format. The identification of the source language and grade is based on a statistical approach.

From the literature review, the authors found that most researches and products do not support bilingual translation from Braille to text in either contracted or un‐contracted Braille. Mubser system is a robust system that fills that gap. It helps both visually impaired and sighted people, especially Arabic native speakers, to translate from Braille to text.

Mubser is being implemented and tested by the authors for both Arabic and English languages. The tests performed so far have shown excellent results. In the future, it is planned to integrate the system with an optical Braille recognition system, enhance the system to accept new languages, support maths and scientific symbols, and add spell checkers.

There is a desperate need for such system to translate Braille system into normal text. This system helps both sighted and blind people to communicate better.

This paper presents a novel system for converting Braille codes (Arabic and English) into normal text.

During the 1980s' Decade of the Disabled, legislation, advocacy activities, and special programs stimulated increased awareness of the rights of people with disabilities for better access to education, employment, housing, and information. In response to the growing need for easier access to information found in a public library, staff at the Phoenix Public Library designed a library Special Needs Center to make the services and resources of the library totally accessible. The following policy and mission statements illustrate this effort.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the issue of tailored text input methods for visually impaired and blind users that are needed on touchscreen devices to support their accessibility. Previous approaches still have issues related to the necessity of searching for characters, slow entry speeds or cumbersome handling.

The authors developed a new Braille-based text input method named EdgeBraille, which allows entering six-point Braille characters by swiping one finger along the edges of the touchscreen in an arbitrary sequence. The approach was compared with the current standard method of a talking keyboard, first in a short-term lab study (14 participants) and then during two weeks of daily training (seven participants).

Overall EdgeBraille was perceived well by the users and possesses favourable handling characteristics. In terms of user performance (words per minute and error rate) the authors found no significant differences between the two methods. However, based on the evaluation results and the feedback of the participants the authors identified possibilities for improvement in terms of a smaller EdgeBraille version allowing the entry of eight-point Braille characters, and conducted a proof-of-concept study (seven participants).

In the paper the authors comprehensively reflect on advantages and disadvantages of Braille-based methods in general and EdgeBraille in particular. The authors argue why and how Braille-based methods should serve as complement to current text input paradigms based on talking keyboard and indicate future directions of research.

This paper aims to highlight the importance of braille for visually impaired people and the possibility of printing it by using the ultra-violet (UV) inkjet printing technique.

The vision impairment, definitions and statistics, as well as braille letter and standards, are first reviewed. Then, the methods of printing braille have been discussed, with a focus on UV ink-jet printing. Finally, this study indicates a significant role of UV ink-jet printed Braille, its possibilities and its advantages.

Research studies in the field of UV ink-jet printed braille are showing that it is possible to print good legible braille of the adequate height of dots. This paper highlights some advantages of printing braille with UV ink-jet, like the possibility of achieving greater dot height than embossing and no need for printing form. Printing of additional elements on top of braille dot has also been tested, and possible use for differentiation of the written notation is shown. This paper also indicates the importance of technological and operating conditions in UV inkjet braille printing. It predicts a significant role of UV inkjet in braille printing.

This paper provides a detailed review of UV ink-jet printed braille: possibilities, advantages and application.