

Accessibility Upgrade: EPUB, Libraries, and Ebook Accessibility - jcr
http://lj.libraryjournal.com/2013/04/technology/ebook-accessbility/

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jareds
As a blind individual the iPhone with epub has been a great improvement for me
when it comes to reading. I can now get new books as soon as there released
instead of waiting for them to be available in audio format, or looking for
pirated versions on torrent sites. The problem I have with this article is
that Braille was not mentioned once. I started reading Braille books when I
was young which gave me basic literacy. I no longer read Braille unless I’m
coding but in spite of that reading Braille books when I was young gave me the
basic foundation to understand grammar well enough to type this post. I don’t
know what blind people will miss out on if they use text to speech their
entire lives without having to actually interpret text word by word but I’m
guessing it is quite a bit.

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jcr
Though I have reasonably good vision under some conditions, I deal with one of
the mild variations of ocular albinism. I can see pretty good but I can't
handle some things very well like bright lights, flickering, or some areas of
the spectrum, such as older florescent lights. Most of the web where black
text is put on a white background is painful for me to read, but luckily I
know how to configure my browser to override the default display colors.

Over the years, I've set up many computer systems for people with various
types of vision limitations, including text-to-speech, special magnification,
color pallets within visual range, alternate fonts, and Braille display
systems. Sadly, I can't read Braille by touch, and when I check systems to
make sure they're working right, I do it visually.

Text-to-speech is helpful, but there are many textual clues which are never
vocalized. For example, on a UNIX mailing list one user was having trouble
understanding some of the emails due to the fact that the convention for
indicating a manual page is to put the name of the manual page followed by a
left parenthesis, then the number of the manual section, followed by a right
parenthesis. His screen reader just sort of skipped over the parenthesis, so
he never realized he was being directed to the text based manuals.

The major problem with Braille displays is their cost. Most of them are
heavily protected by patents, insanely expensive, and extremely limited.
Braille is tough to do well on most modern computer systems. Most modern
graphical user interfaces are just not designed to give an alternate way of
interacting with the system.

I've always wondered if it would be feasible to create a pin display?

The idea would be basically replacing the pixels of visual displays with pins
to create a tactile display. Graphical elements, even pictures, could be
represented with raised or lowered pins. The text could be translated to
Braille, or rendered as raised pins in a touch-readable font.

It would not solve the issue of Braille illiteracy exactly, but from my
ignorant view as a sighted person, I believe it could help in a lot of ways,
including literacy.

