
As Braille Literacy Declines, Reading Competitions Held to Boost Interest - happy-go-lucky
http://www.npr.org/2017/03/13/519983877/as-braille-literacy-declines-reading-competitions-held-to-boost-interest
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sorressean
While I love and applaud these contests as someone who should be better at
reading braille, the article doesn't focus on a few key points. First it's not
really the explosion of smartphones that has pushed braille literacy down, so
much as it is the concept of having things read to you, in audio or via a
screen reader. Laptops are pretty eubiquitous and thus it's much easier to
port around a laptop and/or tablet than it is to lug around Braille Books. I
remember my home room in grade school and into middle school would have
volumes upon volumes of braille books just for individual subjects.

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ythn
Seems like there should be a market for a dynamic braille surface - something
thin and light you could bring with your laptop that plugs into USB and has
little dots that can mechanically (or magnetically) raise and lower whenever a
pdf or webpage or whatever comes into focus.

I for one get frustrated listening to someone read at their pace and would
much rather read at my own pace.

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jcranmer
Braille displays have existed for well over a decade. (A brief look at patents
suggests that the idea is half a century old). They usually use piezoelectric
effects, according to Wikipedia.

The few blind people I've been acquainted with have all seemed to prefer
screenreaders to braille displays. It's not hard to see why. You need to move
one hand off the keyboard to read braille (keep in mind that blind users are
almost invariably keyboard-centric users). The display is also very low
information-density--you get 1 line of maybe 60, 70 characters. The
information that gets piped into that display has to be set somehow--and
invariably, it comes from screenreader information, which makes it hard to see
any value-add benefits to a braille display.

It probably makes more sense to do a full on braille e-reader, particularly
since physical braille books have to be much larger than regular books, and
e-books already have a smaller problem space to actually implement. Looking
around, I'm not the first to have this idea, but most of the products seem to
be vaporware, for reasons that aren't clear to me (lack of funding?).

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dragonwriter
> The few blind people I've been acquainted with have all seemed to prefer
> screenreaders to braille displays. It's not hard to see why. You need to
> move one hand off the keyboard to read braille (keep in mind that blind
> users are almost invariably keyboard-centric users).

Ergonomics/UX factors, as appealing of an explanation as they make, may not be
the main reason; the fact that the vast majority of the blind _don 't read
Braille_ may be a bigger factor (Braille literacy among the blind seems to be
about 10% in the US.)

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jcranmer
For the people I knew who were blind, lack of knowledge of braille wasn't an
issue in their case. After all, one did own (and bring to a conference!) a
braille display, he just didn't use it most of the time.

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tetraodonpuffer
can't you end up "reading" faster by using screen readers than with Braille
books? Every time I see a video of a blind person with a screen reader the
words are so sped up that it makes me think it is a lot more efficient than
Braille (not to mention the fact you can get any book read to you that way,
not just the few you can find).

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Waterluvian
I'm fairly ignorant on the subject. Why is Braille important? We replaced
sight with touch. Now we replace it with sound. Why's this a bad thing? I see
people in the article sounding frustrated but I don't see any compelling
reasons for why this is bad. It seems as if it's just the classic old
generation wants the new generation to do it their way.

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astrodust
Maybe it's going the way of Morse Code, where it's use is relegated to labels
on things and old books instead of being the only way to roll.

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howard941
Code is a great way to get status and diagnostics out of peripheral-limited
embedded systems.

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JumpCrisscross
Is there a need for Braille beyond historical or nostalgic concerns?

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pigeons
Are there better methods that don't require the user to have immediate access
to electricity?

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aaron695
Even the real poor ( < $2 per day) generally have access to charging simple
electronic devices.

I'd guess those who don't are not likely going to be able to read braille or
have access to many books, let alone books in their language in braille.

I don't see electricity access as being the issue.

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pigeons
Well I was thinking of personal experiences and maybe others like to read
emergency signs in buildings when power may be out, menus, or read a book
outside by the lake. I would not want to rely on electricity to be able to
read, it doesn't have to do with poverty.

