
Braille Neue Combines Touchable Braille with Visible Letters - coreyp_1
https://mymodernmet.com/braille-neue-typeface-kosuke-takahashi/
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rowyourboat
I don't quite understand the problem it solves. It has disadvantages over
dedicated type for both sighted and blind people. For the sighted, it's harder
to read than fonts typically used for signage, and the blind get a cumbersome
letter-by-letter string rather than grade 2 braille.

What advantages does it have versus just overlaying regular braille with an
easy-to-read font? Yes, the dots don't match up with the letters, but that is
not really a problem, is it?

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kall
I like the spirit of it but the readability for sighted, and especially barely
sighted people is problematic. If it works for blind people but not for almost
blind people, it's a bad solution.

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pimlottc
It's a neat idea, but for public signage, I'm not sure there's much value in
aligning the braille dots with the visible characters. Tactile letters and
visual type can coexist quite easily on the same area without interfering much
with each other, so what's the problem?

I could definitely see this as an aid to learning braille, I just don't see it
causing a big change in accessible signage.

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bashtoni
Except that most people don't use Braille letter by letter - they use grade 2
Braille which combines multiple letters into a single character -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Braille](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Braille)

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daurnimator
Could be done in a font with ligatures.

Turns out that ligatures in common font formats are quite powerful! See e.g.
[http://www.sansbullshitsans.com/](http://www.sansbullshitsans.com/) or
[https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode](https://github.com/tonsky/FiraCode)

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tobltobs
For a correct Braille 2 translation one needs to understand the context of a
word. Your first link actually is a good example for this problem. Enter
"agile" and "fragile".

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ianbooker
To second this, Braille "folding" is also sensible to pronunciation..

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tibbon
One thing to keep in mind is that not-all people who are blind are completely
without vision. There's a lot of variations of blindness, and the need for
accessibility. There's a good chance that some people needing to read braille
can see that there's a sign there, but just can't read the letters with their
eyes, especially in certain lighting conditions.

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femto113
Interesting. My mother has worked on a similar system for awhile, embracing
some of the more technical nuance of braille (like contractions and math and
such) [http://dotlessbraille.org/](http://dotlessbraille.org/) which was
inspired by her father's work (my grandfather) on a what he called "Braille
for the sighted" or "kobographs" (his initials are KOB)
[http://www.dotlessbraille.org/kobographs.htm](http://www.dotlessbraille.org/kobographs.htm)

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sagebird
I made a font based off Kobigraphs with font struct a few years ago [1] - but
it’s not really a perfect mapping. I found the dotlessbraille.org site quite
interesting.

[1]
[https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/365490/braille_ko...](https://fontstruct.com/fontstructions/show/365490/braille_kobigraphs_standard)

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subroutine
Something I've always wondered is how blind people discover braille on
placards in public spaces, given the seeming random placement of signage and
the unreliability of signage to include braille.

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jscholes
Life as a blind person is littered with questions like this. Quite often,
braille signage is one of those things a sighted companion points out, usually
just because of the "hey, look at this!" factor. I go through life expecting
that places won't have braille signs, or if they do, I'll look like an idiot
trying to find them anyway so I expect not to use them. There are some places
that often have similar layouts (e.g. hotels) where this situation could be
taken advantage of - if hotels had braille signs for room numbers it would
make it easier to navigate. But I've never stayed in a hotel that did.

There are other issues, for example an airport might have a special assistance
desk for disabled travellers but you need assistance to find or reach it.

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subroutine
Thank you for the response. How helpful would it be to have some kind of
standard that indicates a building has braille signage? I'm thinking it could
be somewhere you would always know where to inspect first, so you dont waste
time checking around. I think a good place would be a door handle into the
building that simply idicates right or left. Then just inside the door to the
right or left there would be braille instructions like - "all rooms have
braille signs 5 feet from ground. The floorplan is such. Here is where you can
find room x y z."

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thedirt0115
I'm not blind, but I've always wanted to learn braille so I could read in the
dark while getting ready for bed. However, I've also been lazy and haven't
devoted the time to learning. I think this might be the perfect thing to let
me passively learn while I do my normal reading. Kudos to the creator!

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jscholes
If you want to learn to read braille by touch rather than by sight, you may
have a hard time trying to do so passively. Paying attention to what your
sense of touch is telling you and then translating it into letters, words,
sentences and then eventual meaning is not the same as using your eyes to
achieve the same thing. It's also a fair bit slower unless you practice a lot.
Best of luck with it though, more people should learn things like braille as a
life hack!

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coreyp_1
I'm sorry for the clickbait-y title... it's the one on the page itself.

I did think that this was an interesting design, and might be of interest to
people here.

I also found a website for the font itself:
[http://brailleneue.com/](http://brailleneue.com/)

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mistersquid
It's great Takahashi lists prior art under "Reference of Past Works",
explaining Braille Neue differs from previous attempts by

>design[ing] a typeset that correspond[s] not only to latin alphabets but also
to Japanese fonts.

I wonder why those other efforts (or any effort) were not used for the braille
signage one often sees at bank ATMs and in building interiors.

The idea is really cool and I like the aesthetic of Braille Neue, which looks
monospace in its capital letters version. (Presumably a lowercase, if there
were lowercase versions, would not map so cleanly.) Also, there is the issue
of punctuation which would in some cases would defy visual/tactile mapping.
[0]

In any case, what Takahashi presents so far is very very cool.

[0]
[http://www.brl.org/codes/session01/punc.html](http://www.brl.org/codes/session01/punc.html)

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noonespecial
Cool idea, but who benefits from the alignment? Why not just place to dots as
usual and then paint the text over everything in whatever font you want? Seems
like it would be less distracting to the sighted with no downside at all to
the blind.

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ipsum2
I'm not sure what it was created for, but it seems like a neat way to learn
Braille for people with sight. Close your eyes, feel the dots, and look to see
if you got it right.

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Double_a_92
Acutally it's not. The braille dots just happen to randomly lie somewhere on
the lines of the letters.

It's silimar to this thing that is supposed to teach the numbers:
[https://imgur.com/m6HOhfJ](https://imgur.com/m6HOhfJ) It's so constructed
(useless lines and serifs where more corners where needed) that you can't
really learn anything from it.

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Brendinooo
I'm a very visual learner; if I spent enough time looking at these letters I'd
probably start to remember where the dots are on each letter. Not sure how
well that'd translate to recall when touching the letters with my eyes closed
though.

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saagarjha
> Derived from the popular Helvetica Neue font

I’m not really seeing the resemblance. Could someone enlighten me? Also, would
this lead to licensing restrictions?

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mortenjorck
Either the article is incorrect, or there is a different style not shown that
is actually based on Helvetica. You’re not missing anything.

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tjwds
Though I don't imagine this particular typeface will suddenly be popping up
everywhere, I think there's a lot of value here to introduce accessibility to
more spaces and encourage similar projects to come about.

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rabboRubble
I have an old friend from college who, at that time, was already blind. Since
then, illness has robbed her of her hearing.

Having something like this where she can read, and her husband can see the
same written content would be invaluable to their relationship.

Forwarding this article to the couple.

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tzakrajs
Why don't they overlay transparent Braille lettering onto existing signs?

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BlindGod
Isn't Braille always the same size so I can touch it? Isn't print in public
spaces often large so I can see it from far away?

